Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said 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 was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic 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 responded 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. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty 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 asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.