Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – views on politics and personal connections.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder 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} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run 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 representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly 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 had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 look into Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”
Summers restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found 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 ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left 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 connected to 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
