Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out 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 key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

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 response, Conservative lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 reiterated his regret 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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. 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 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 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.