Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating 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 believe if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left 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 charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other 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-sex-trafficking organizations.
