Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out 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 Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win 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 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 met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.