Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission 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 irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch 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”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring 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 look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 remorse 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
