Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – views on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch 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 conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later 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 non-profit 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 got together a multiple 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.