Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated 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 investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 said. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally 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 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 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 associated with 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.