Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly 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 romantic gestures 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic 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 saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.