Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Numerous exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and personal connections.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, 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 imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening 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 examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.