Uncovered Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

Numerous messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time 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 departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.