Uncovered Communications Show Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of exchanges between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic 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 got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
