Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.

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

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance 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 SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment 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 women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted 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 leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public 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 response, Republican lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting 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 associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.