Uncovered Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance 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 abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together 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.