Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Numerous communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up 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 posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with 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.
