Uncovered Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Numerous messages between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy 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 gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware 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 released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 said. “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 appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed 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 NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.