Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion 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 not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers stated 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 suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

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 Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.