Disclosed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as trusted allies.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor 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 murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance 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 uproar after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit 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 got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
