Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were close contacts.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of 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 feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his remorse 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.