Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and personal connections.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “is very sorry for 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 had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

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

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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