Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

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

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably 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 advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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