Revealed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player 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 stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers released 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 response, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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