Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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