Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates

A series of messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.

These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.

“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence 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 think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”

At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time 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 mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”

Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed 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 then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.