Uncovered Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and relationships.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating 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} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the email 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 the populace.”
Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed 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.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
