Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating 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 market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed 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 star was rising. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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