Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – opinions on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“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. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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 star was rising. Summers would ultimately 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 requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on 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 surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
