Disclosed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and personal connections.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot 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 formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in 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 responded in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later win 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 non-profit 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 met a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
