Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. 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 grappling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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, GOP lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately 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 soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.