Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.

Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”

During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers commented 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 suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.

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 influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.

“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested 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 later win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

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