Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry 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 not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, added 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 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 financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released 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 reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt 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's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers restated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
