Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and relationships.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant 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 abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents 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 stated 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 prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit 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 met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.