Disclosed Exchanges Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially 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 advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
