Revealed Emails Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Multiple communications between convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers have emerged this week, showing the pair were trusted allies.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, demonstrate the two men sharing intimate – and at times questionable – opinions on public affairs and relationships.
I'm struggling to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} understand why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS OBSERVATION.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a uproar after making discriminatory comments about women scholars, continued in the message to Epstein: “I observed 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 prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the main engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the market collapse, and a steadfast voice in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier set of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a spokesperson for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers disclosed 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 retaliation, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein converse on politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows usually possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s profile was growing. Summers would later win appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began requesting Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men got together a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
