Revealed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on public affairs 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 irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring 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 “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.