Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.