Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined 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 later win appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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