Revealed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and relationships.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect 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 think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated 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 Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
