Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”

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 conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.