Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump posted 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 influential liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain 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 overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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