Disclosed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and relationships.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence 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 population.”
Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed 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 star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
