Revealed Communications Depict Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of exchanges between adjudicated child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, indicating the pair served as trusted allies.
These exchanges, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times unseemly – perspectives on political matters and personal connections.
“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by beating and desertion it must be not a factor 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 take the life of your baby by violence and abandonment it must be unimportant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 communication. “But flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
Back then, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance discussion after a once incarcerated woman’s acceptance to a PhD program. Summers, a one-time president of the university who resigned amid a uproar after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without noting they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was previously a leading light in the Democratic Party circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis, and a stalwart voice in the progressive media. But questions have remained about his relationship with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a broad child sex trafficking operation before his demise in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers commented that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein thought Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, GOP lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers kept up amicable contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange happening only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, disclosed to Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unidentified woman, and being rejected.
“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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he said. “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 associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped 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 eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on 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 media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
