Disclosed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry 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 neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the message 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 previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt 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 romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers affirmed his remorse 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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.

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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