Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed 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 liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier 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 conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public 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, Conservative lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. 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 soliciting Epstein for non-profit 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 met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.