Recent reporting on internal emails from Jeffrey Epstein's estate has renewed scrutiny of a Department of Justice interview with Ghislaine Maxwell and highlighted messages in which Larry Summers discussed a mentee with Epstein. Legal analysts have questioned aspects of the DOJ’s handling of the Maxwell session, while separate disclosures detail Summers’ exchanges with Epstein about a female economics professor he mentored.
In November 2025, Slate reported on a new tranche of emails from the estate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, describing previously undisclosed interactions involving Ghislaine Maxwell and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
According to Slate’s account of the documents, one key episode centers on an August meeting between Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate who was convicted in 2021 for sex trafficking and related offenses, and then–senior Justice Department lawyer Todd Blanche. Slate characterizes the encounter as a “proffer”-style session, in which Maxwell was questioned about Epstein and his network.
Former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah, speaking on the Amicus podcast and cited by Slate, argued that the interview lacked the rigor of a standard proffer, where prosecutors typically press a witness on known evidence and seek detailed, truthful information in exchange for potential leniency or other benefits. Rocah said Blanche did not challenge Maxwell on certain points that had been central at her trial, including payments she received from Epstein that she described in the interview as “loans.”
Slate further reports that the discussion did not address a set of emails in which Epstein claimed that Donald Trump had spent hours at a house with a victim, and Maxwell responded, “Yeah, I was thinking about that.” After the release of the estate records, Blanche later posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the Epstein estate had “hid” these emails from the government. Rocah countered, according to Slate, that prosecutors should ensure they have complete documentary records before conducting such a session.
The Slate piece also notes that Maxwell’s conditions of confinement changed after the interview. According to the article, she was later moved to a more comfortable facility, where she had access to a puppy program, following her statement in the session that Trump “did nothing inappropriate.” Slate does not independently establish a causal link between the interview, her comments about Trump, and the change in prison conditions, and presents this sequence in the context of broader questions about how the Justice Department handled the matter.
A separate Slate report examines emails between Epstein and Larry Summers. In messages dated November 2018 and described by Slate, Summers wrote to Epstein about a female economics professor whom he had mentored, saying, “Think for now I’m going nowhere with her except economics mentor,” and speculating that she preferred to keep their relationship professional despite his interest in something more. Epstein replied, “She’s already begining to sound needy :) nice,” and later wrote that “she is never ever going to find another Larry summers. Probability ZERO.” In the same exchange, Summers acknowledged, according to Slate’s account, that his “best shot” depended on her seeing his role as “invaluable” and concluding that “she can’t have it without romance / sex.”
The publication of these messages has prompted fresh criticism of both men’s conduct and of the institutions with which they have been associated. Citing the Summers emails, Slate reports that Senator Elizabeth Warren called on Harvard University, where Summers is a prominent faculty member and former president, to cut ties with him, arguing that he "cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions."
In the article on the Maxwell interview, Slate also situates the episode within a wider pattern of judicial skepticism toward the Justice Department’s representations in court. Drawing on statistics compiled by legal scholar Ryan Goodman, Slate notes that federal courts have rejected government factual claims in dozens of recent cases. One example highlighted in the piece is a Virginia proceeding in which prosecutors acknowledged that they had been instructed not to disclose certain information about a declination memorandum in the James Comey investigation; according to Slate, those instructions traced back to Blanche.
Taken together, the reporting underscores continuing concerns about the use of professional power and institutional authority in matters connected to Epstein, from prosecutorial decision-making to the behavior of prominent academics and policymakers.