Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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 OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his regret 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 designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested 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.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later win 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 developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
