Revealed Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote 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 SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say 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 leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later 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 requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen 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 anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
