Disclosed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, added in the message 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 population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain 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 overtures 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 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 gave 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 concluded Epstein “did not have the educational background 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 profile was growing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
