Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact 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 previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
