Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times improper – views on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior batch 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 legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening 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 investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his regret 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined 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.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
