Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple exchanges between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion 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 murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say 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 Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact 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 the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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. “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 donated 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 found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.