Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – views on politics and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time 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 owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party 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 committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

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

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. 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 requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.