Uncovered Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic 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 got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.