Disclosed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair were close contacts.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed 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 prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection 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 disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers released a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s disdain 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 romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”
Summers restated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left 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 charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
