Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant 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 take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure 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 legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed 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 response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 developing 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 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.
