Disclosed Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – views on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then Obama’s career was advancing. 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 requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.