Uncovered Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill 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} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor 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 OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email 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 once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.

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

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed 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 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 requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.