Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and personal connections.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump stated 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 prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.

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

“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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left 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 gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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