Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a formerly 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 women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects 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 replied 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
