Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a once 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 scholars, went on to say in the correspondence 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 the populace.”

Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike 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.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined 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 ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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