Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse 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 think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted 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 prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 have great regrets in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually win 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.