Disclosed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited 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 gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together 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.
