Uncovered Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and personal connections.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant 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 irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic 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 issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably 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 advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.