Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were confidants.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the email 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 the populace.”
Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally 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 then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit 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 saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
