Disclosed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as close contacts.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u kill 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} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out 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 leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared 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 left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.