Uncovered Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed 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 regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
