Disclosed Exchanges Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
“I’m trying 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 take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. 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 wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, 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 the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers released 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 response, GOP lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally 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 that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
