Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time 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 departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.