Disclosed Exchanges Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Numerous exchanges between found guilty child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, showing the pair served as close contacts.
The messages, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging personal – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.
I'm struggling to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and neglect it must be unimportant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers stated to Epstein in a 2017 email. Yet made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT SHARE THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was grappling with an admissions discussion after a previously incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who resigned amid a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, continued in the message to Epstein: I pointed out 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 previously a key player in liberal circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s handling to the market collapse, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But concerns have remained about his association with Epstein, a former connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging exploitation operation before his demise in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a representative for Summers stated that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that indicate Epstein thought Trump was had knowledge of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Republican lawmakers issued a more extensive tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers kept up friendly contact with the found guilty child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the most recent email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s apprehension.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to examine Epstein’s “involvement and connection” with Summers, among other influential liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the particulars of non-profit social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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 sorrow in a recent statement. “There are many things I regret in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was designated a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later determined Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only ceased accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would later win 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 non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
