Uncovered Emails Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling 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 believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
