Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

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 association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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.

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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