Disclosed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times improper – views on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final 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 look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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 eventually win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.