Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times improper – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment 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 think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking 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 associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.