Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were close contacts.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 have great regrets in my life,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually win 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 philanthropic 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 got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
