Revealed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Multiple messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a formerly 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 message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous set 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 guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released 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 reply, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances 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 sorrow 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing 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 dozen 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.