Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant 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 murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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 retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. 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 soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.