Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
A series of messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – opinions on politics and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his association with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released 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 reply, Conservative lawmakers released a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials 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 detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“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 affirmed his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued 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 exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
