Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill 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} understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated 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 believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.

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

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking 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 linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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