Disclosed Emails Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.
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 unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited 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 charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
