Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and relationships.
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 entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward 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 admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the email 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 society.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive 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 developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
