Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant 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 violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased 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 stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit 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 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 “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.