Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Numerous exchanges between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission 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 physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications 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 profile was growing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.