Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger collection 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 last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 affirmed his sorrow 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 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 “did not have the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
