Disclosed Exchanges Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and personal connections.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry 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 abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But 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 wrestling with an acceptance controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers stated 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 indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “As previously stated, my connection to Jeffrey Epstein represented a serious lapse in judgment.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later secure appointment as director of the White House NEC 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 developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
