Revealed Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women in academia, added in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
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 financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a broad exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers published a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and association” with Summers, among other prominent liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows normally possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected 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 emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
