Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials 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 detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with 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.