Disclosed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – views on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion 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 take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out 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 prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise 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 agent for Summers stated 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 retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified 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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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