Uncovered Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: I pointed out 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 leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting 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 dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.