Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence 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} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about 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 released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to 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 wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated 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 not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.