Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published 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 relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“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 restated his sorrow 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 donated 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 “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased 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 NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
