Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment 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 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 OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the email 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 at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 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 determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met 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 “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.