Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous exchanges between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist 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 possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail 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 said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released 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 reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein gave 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 determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable 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 saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
