Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment 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 kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the message 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 the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to 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 wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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