Disclosed Emails Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
