Revealed Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
A series of messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically 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 then 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 left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.