Disclosed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor 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 murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

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

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed 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 saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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