Disclosed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of messages between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion 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 take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a key player in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 sorrow 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.