Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as trusted allies.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – views on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared 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 ultimately win appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
