Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

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

I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”

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 perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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