Uncovered Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say 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 population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting 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 connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
