Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor 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 violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former 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 noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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 association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

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

“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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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