Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder 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 physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
