Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes

Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as confidants.

The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and relationships.

I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated 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. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”

Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”

Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

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

The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly 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 overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.

“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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.

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

By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later 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 charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other 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.