Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor 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 kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added 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 architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody 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 commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
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 association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his remorse 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately secure 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts 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 surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
