Disclosed Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes

A series of communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on political matters and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of 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.

These records show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”

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 academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.