Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – views on political matters and personal connections.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by physical abuse and abandonment 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 feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers affirmed his regret 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed 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 National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic 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 got together 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-exploitation organizations.
