Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence 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 society.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to 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 responded 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing 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 pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

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

After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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