Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment 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 violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance 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 message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty 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 economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on 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.