Disclosed Emails Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends

Numerous messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.

I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.

Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed 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 released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 donated 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 found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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