Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and personal connections.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel 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 physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic 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, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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

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

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his remorse 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen 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-exploitation organizations.