Uncovered Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder 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 believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.