Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 examine Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed 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 eventually receive 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 philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.
