Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant 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 violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 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 determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. 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 requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.