Disclosed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, 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 the populace.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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 that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions 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 media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
