Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But 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 enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence 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 society.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about 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 convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

Harvard only ceased 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 win 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 charitable 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 saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.