Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly 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 advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 charitable contributions to projects linked 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.