Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – views on political matters and personal connections.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“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 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related 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 not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
