Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission 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 scholars, went on to say in the email 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 population.”

Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

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

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple 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 anti-exploitation organizations.