Disclosed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and personal connections.

I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 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 contributed 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 concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

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