Revealed Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Multiple exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and relationships.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
