Disclosed Emails Depict Jeffrey Epstein and Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.
The messages, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men discussing intimate – and at times questionable – views on political matters and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance debate after a previously incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was at one time a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But doubts have persisted about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other influential Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later concluded Epstein “did not have 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 admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.