Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission 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 beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking 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 saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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