Uncovered Emails Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous communications between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as confidants.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women in academia, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the progressive media. But doubts have remained about his association with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning 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 response, Republican lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures 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 restated his sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application outlined 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 that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
