Disclosed Exchanges Show Epstein and Summers as Trusted Friends
Multiple messages between adjudicated sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers were released this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men exchanging private – and at times improper – views on political matters and interpersonal dynamics.
I am attempting to figure why [the] American elite feel if u murder your baby by physical abuse and desertion it must be unimportant 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 take the life of your baby by beating and neglect it must be unimportant to your entry to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS OBSERVATION.”
Back then, Harvard University was wrestling with an acceptance discussion after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who stepped down amid a scandal after making sexist comments about women scholars, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ in [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of society.”
Summers was previously a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary designers of Barack Obama’s response to the economic downturn, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But doubts have lingered about his connection with Epstein, a long-standing connection of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a extensive exploitation operation before his passing in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following disclosure of a prior set 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 conviction”.
Democratic lawmakers made public 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 retaliation, GOP lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records show that Summers continued friendly contact with the found guilty 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 instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “participation and relationship” with Summers, among other well-known liberal leaders and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – especially Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the particulars of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” 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 restated his regret 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 affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later determined Epstein “did not have the educational background visiting fellows usually possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.
Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
At that point Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for non-profit advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made charitable contributions to projects linked to Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After news about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-exploitation organizations.
