Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal 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 stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed 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, GOP lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”

Summers restated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve 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 anti-exploitation organizations.