Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates

Multiple communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.

These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and relationships.

“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion 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 believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward 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 controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed 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 key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.

Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.

Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.

These records show that Summers continued 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 asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.

In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.

“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.

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

By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.

After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.

After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.