Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I noted 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 previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic 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 is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
