Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment 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 think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge 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 friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
