Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on 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 grappling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: I noted 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 Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve 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.