Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion 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 believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained 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 wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested 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.

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

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.