Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and relationships.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications 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 pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen 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 anti-exploitation organizations.