Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair acted as close contacts.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – views on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a formerly 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 female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released 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 reply, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time 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 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 philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
