Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance 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 physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited 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 philanthropic donations 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 news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.