Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – opinions on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance 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 beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“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 reiterated his regret in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
