Uncovered Communications Illustrate Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US finance chief Larry Summers were released this week, indicating the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men discussing personal – and at times improper – perspectives on public affairs and interpersonal dynamics.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in liberal circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a steadfast voice in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a spokesperson for Summers said that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Conservative lawmakers released a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democrats and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rejected.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” he commented. “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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined 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 discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later 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 multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
