Revealed Exchanges Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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 OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

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

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

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 sorrow 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed 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 ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.