Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed 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 once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly 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 overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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