Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance 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 abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike 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 rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually 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 career was advancing. 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
