Disclosed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing personal – and at times questionable – views on politics and relationships.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u kill your baby by beating and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated 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. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a uproar after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But questions have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his legal finding”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers published a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers kept up congenial contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein responded 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 regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. 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 soliciting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple 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 anti-exploitation organizations.
