Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening 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 examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic 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 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 wrote. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed 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.

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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