Uncovered Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve 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.
