Revealed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder 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} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say 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 at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent 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 indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably 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 rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later 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 asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.