Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

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

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger 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 last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

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

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the educational background 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 confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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