Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times unseemly – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike 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 overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 associated 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 proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed 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 gifts to projects connected 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 surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.