Uncovered Emails Depict Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair were close contacts.
These exchanges, dating from 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging intimate – and at times questionable – perspectives on politics and interpersonal dynamics.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of 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} figure why [the] American elite think if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be not a factor to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. However flirted with a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
At that time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who lost his position amid a scandal after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, added in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of population.”
Summers was once a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a representative for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein replied in an exchange on 16 March. “disregard the 'daddy' comment, I'm going out with the motorcycle guy, you handled it well.. irritation indicates concern., no complaining demonstrated strength.”
Summers reiterated his sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began requesting Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor developing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a multiple times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
