Uncovered Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic lawmakers released 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 response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

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 designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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