Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor 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 beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.