Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant 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 beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed 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 retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined 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 stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later 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 soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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