Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

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

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission 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. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking 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 – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures 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 harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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 departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to 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 “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.