Revealed Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence 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 society.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.