Uncovered Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and relationships.

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

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate 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 much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials 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 detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt 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 anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty 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 exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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