Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – views on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down 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 owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented 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 indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated 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 look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.