Revealed Communications Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
A series of exchanges between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers said 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 suggest Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein replied 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. “I have great regrets 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 related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
