Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission 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 neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added 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 the populace.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set 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 released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
