Disclosed Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Numerous communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.

The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”

Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in custody 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 said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring 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 association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.

“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.

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

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.