Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect 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 think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment 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 women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 reiterated his sorrow 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 named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background 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 admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
