Disclosed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and neglect 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 feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic 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, GOP lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained 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 wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed 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 have great regrets in my life,” he said. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 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-exploitation organizations.
