Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death 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 representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately 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 charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
