Uncovered Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – views on political matters and personal connections.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be not a factor 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 beating and abandonment it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say in the message to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last 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 look into Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 gave 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 “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined 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.
At that point 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 left the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations 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 media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
