Uncovered Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion 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 think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “I’ve expressed this previously: my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was a grave mistake.”
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 appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined 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 ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately 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 soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen 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.
