Uncovered Exchanges Show Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were trusted allies.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times improper – perspectives on politics and personal connections.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a key player in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a agent for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed 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, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 restated his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “did not have the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic 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 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 “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
