Disclosed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion 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 sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously 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 committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 donated 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 “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting 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 connected to 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-exploitation organizations.