Revealed Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing personal – and at times unseemly – views on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, added in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited 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 philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
