Uncovered Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

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