Uncovered Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as close contacts.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. 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.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior tranche 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”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”
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 named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.