Uncovered Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Numerous communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission 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, continued in the email 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 population.”
Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded 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 restated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
