Uncovered Exchanges Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant 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 kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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 SHARE THIS IDEA.”
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 scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump wrote 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 prominent Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 reiterated his sorrow 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 named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified 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 later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
