Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment 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 think if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

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

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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 well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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 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 left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.