Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

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

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.