Disclosed Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Multiple exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once 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 handling to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening 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 look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed 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.

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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