Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the message 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 at one time a leading light in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
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 named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately 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 soliciting Epstein for non-profit 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 dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
