Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission 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 physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the email 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 society.”

Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson 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 was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited 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 linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.