Uncovered Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions 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 sexist 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 noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained amicable 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 stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
