Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were trusted allies.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – views on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of 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} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 restated his regret 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed 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 philanthropic donations 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 reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
