Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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 receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
