Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance 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 beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response 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 connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening 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 “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
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 advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“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. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 donated 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 determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
