Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission 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 physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a leading light 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 stalwart presence in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”
Summers restated his remorse 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
