Revealed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were close contacts.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence 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 take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning 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 engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
