Disclosed Communications Depict Epstein and Summers as Close Associates
Multiple communications between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, indicating the pair acted as close contacts.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing personal – and at times unseemly – perspectives on politics and relationships.
“I’m trying to determine why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by beating and abandonment it must be unimportant 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 kill 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 communication. Yet hit on a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who stepped down amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about female academics, added in the email to Epstein: I noted that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without stating they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was at one time a leading light in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the economic downturn, and a stalwart figure in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his connection with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was accused of a broad exploitation operation before his passing in prison in 2019 in New York City.
Following the release of a previous tranche 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 guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein believed Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Conservative lawmakers issued a larger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The released materials show that Summers maintained amicable contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump stated on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” 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 details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein responded 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 affirmed his regret in a recent statement. “I have great regrets 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its associated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to carry out research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the educational background visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he confessed to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately 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 charitable 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 came out, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations.
