Disclosed Exchanges Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

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

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – views on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder 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 unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 restated his sorrow 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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