Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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 connection” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking 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 connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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