Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing private – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women in academia, added in the email 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 society.”
Summers was previously a prominent figure in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”
Summers affirmed his sorrow 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 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 concluded Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting 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 saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
