Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

A series of exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.

Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and relationships.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated 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 “role and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested 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.

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left 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 charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.