Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry 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 IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated 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 “lacked 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 admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began asking 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 associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
