Uncovered Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials 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 confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen 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 anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
