Disclosed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.

These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – views on political matters and relationships.

“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with 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 dealing with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.

Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

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

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications 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 confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually 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 requesting 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 linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

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