Uncovered Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.