Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times improper – views on public affairs and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal 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 mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a larger 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 final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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