Revealed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing private – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a committed voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents 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 arrest.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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 regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
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 found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt 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 NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
