Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|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 unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released 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 response, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed 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 twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
