Revealed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
A series of exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate 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 publication of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published 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 final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
