Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and neglect 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 can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a previously 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 scholars, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, 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 indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening 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 investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed 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. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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.

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited 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 associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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