Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and relationships.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor 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 murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 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 educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council 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 philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
