Uncovered Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and personal connections.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand 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. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate 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 disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time 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 philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve 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.
