Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant 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 abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating 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 architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 wrote. “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 designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point 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 asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.