Uncovered Emails Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US treasury head Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
The messages, covering 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – views on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite feel if u kill your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 email. However hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was grappling with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a key player in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast voice in the liberal commentariat. But questions have persisted about his relationship with Epstein, a long-standing associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his demise in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, GOP lawmakers published a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers continued friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in 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 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 affirmed his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the scholarly credentials visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met 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 “more than” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
