Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on 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 admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his regret 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested 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 then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.