Uncovered Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed voice in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets 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 aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
