Revealed Exchanges Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion 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 take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed 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 once a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

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

Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

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