Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting 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 admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release 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 conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve 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.
