Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory 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 mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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 response, Republican lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars 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 responded 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting 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 connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.