Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant 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 murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic lawmakers released 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, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive collection 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 happening 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 restated 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. 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 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 saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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