Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence 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 society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set 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 conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually 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.

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.