Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill 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 take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment 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 correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted 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 investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting 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 associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
