Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between found guilty 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 discussing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect 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 believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated 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 indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote 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 Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars 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. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.