Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – views on political matters and personal connections.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating 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 think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated 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 IDEA.”

At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed 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, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive collection 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 most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably 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 overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”

Summers affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

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

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

After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.