Revealed Exchanges Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling 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,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of 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.
These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly 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 is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. 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 requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.