Revealed Exchanges Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous exchanges between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a steadfast figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally 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 that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit 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 got together a multiple 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 anti-exploitation organizations.
