Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar 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 owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation 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 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, Republican lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

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

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.