Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his remorse 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
