Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were trusted allies.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission 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 desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found 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 discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left 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 gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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