Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly 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 romantic gestures toward an unidentified 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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 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 proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point 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 soliciting Epstein for non-profit 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 got together a twelve 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-sex-trafficking organizations.