Uncovered Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion 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 take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former 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 disclosure of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein was of the opinion Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 look into Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein responded in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”
Summers reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to 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 combatting sex trafficking organizations.
