Disclosed Exchanges Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and desertion 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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