Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|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 unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
