Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially 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 romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested 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.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.
