Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – views on politics and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of 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 feel if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out 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 key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed 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 “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts 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 reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.