Revealed Emails Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed 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, Republican lawmakers issued a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
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 relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was unqualified 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 National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left 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 charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a multiple 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 anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
