Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate 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 publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 remorse 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 carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left 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 philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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