Uncovered Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added 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 society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers made public 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, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared 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 economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen 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 anti-sex-trafficking organizations.