Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging 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 article, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.