Uncovered Exchanges Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair were close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be irrelevant 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 take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a committed voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a extensive child sex trafficking operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public 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 reply, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated 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 business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 restated his remorse 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would eventually 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 linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
