Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.

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

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel 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 communication. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory 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 noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic 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 response, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

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 conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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