Revealed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and relationships.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 contributed 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 found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.