Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit 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 met a twelve 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 anti-exploitation organizations.