Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party 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 reply, GOP lawmakers released a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote 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 regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped 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 economic advisory body 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 surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
