Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – views on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment 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 feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable 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 responded 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked 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 pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

By then 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 exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.