Disclosed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and relationships.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, went on to say 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 population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger batch 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 most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain 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 romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his sorrow 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed 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.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing 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 dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.