Revealed Communications Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous communications between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging personal – and at times improper – opinions on political matters and relationships.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant 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 take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers stated that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued 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 examine Epstein’s “role and relationship” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased 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 National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.