Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times improper – views on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor 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 murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated 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 INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“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 remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
