Disclosed Emails Illustrate Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
A series of messages between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women in academia, went on to say 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 previously a key player in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s approach to the market collapse, and a committed figure in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a longtime connection 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 disclosure of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on 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 anonymous woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he said. “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 contributed more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded 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 stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began soliciting Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
