Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – views on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence 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 population.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place 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 investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers affirmed his remorse 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 gave 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 normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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