Uncovered Communications Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair were confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men discussing private – and at times improper – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart presence in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers released 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, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained friendly 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 examine Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt 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 anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he commented. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.