Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and personal connections.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance 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 pointed out 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 leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 restated his sorrow 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time 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 departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.