Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing intimate – and at times unseemly – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance 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 violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: I noted 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 prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main designers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike 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 unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“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 reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he said. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left 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 linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen 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-exploitation organizations.