Uncovered Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.