Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry 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 OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.