Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – views on politics and relationships.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance 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 desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out 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 at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a larger 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 most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions 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 media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.