Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant 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 murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”

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

Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic 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 response, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.

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

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”

Summers reiterated 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on 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 surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.