Revealed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed 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 INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the email 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 society.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart presence in the progressive media. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a agent for Summers stated that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware 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 maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring 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 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, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
