Uncovered Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant 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 beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party 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 retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with 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 replied 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 wrote. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined 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 star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
