Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on political matters and personal connections.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in 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 replied 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. “There are many things I regret 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications 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 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 economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit 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 met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
