Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the email 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 the populace.”
Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior 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 conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in 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 reiterated 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to 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 “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
