Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating 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 feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure 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 non-profit 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 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.