Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating 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 murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.

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

“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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed 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 star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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