Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple 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-sex-trafficking organizations.