Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder 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} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy 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 gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger batch 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 most recent email exchange taking place 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
