Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party 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 remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche 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 made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 sorrow 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable 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 met a dozen 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-sex-trafficking organizations.