Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and personal connections.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence 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 population.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson 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 was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated 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 proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.