Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect 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 murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence 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 society.”
Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with 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 “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
