Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Multiple messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of 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 think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the email 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 at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released 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 response, Republican lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen 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.