Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

A series of messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence 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} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers said 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 was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually 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 later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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