Disclosed Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the email 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 previously a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left 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 philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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