Disclosed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Numerous messages between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – views on political matters and relationships.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and neglect 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 think if u kill your baby by violence and desertion it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: “I observed 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 prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers released a larger tranche 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 most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
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 well-known liberal leaders and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied 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 affirmed 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified 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 eventually secure appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
