Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect 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 feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking 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 multiple 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.