Uncovered Exchanges Show Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers as Confidantes
Numerous messages between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and ex- US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair were confidants.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times questionable – views on public affairs and relationships.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by violence and desertion it must be not a factor to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS INSIGHT.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an enrollment controversy after a formerly incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about women scholars, continued in the correspondence to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was owned by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a prominent figure in the Democratic Party circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the economic downturn, and a committed presence in the progressive media. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a extensive exploitation operation before his death 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 representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers disclosed emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein was of the opinion Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers published a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange taking place 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 examine Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – notably Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an anonymous woman, and being rebuffed.
“she's intelligent. holding you accountable for past mistakes,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “overlook the 'daddy' remark, I'm dating the motorcycle guy, you responded appropriately.. frustration signals affection., no protests revealed fortitude.”
Summers restated his regret in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” 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 gave more than $9m to Harvard and its related programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application outlined a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers departed the White House, he began asking Epstein for charitable advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made gifts 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
