Uncovered Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – views on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating 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} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward 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 grappling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad exploitation operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
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 connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials 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 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 departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic 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 saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
