Disclosed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant 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 physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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