Uncovered Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate 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 sexist comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place 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 look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically 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.

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

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.