Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Numerous exchanges between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier set 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 guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
