Numerous communications between found guilty sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US finance chief Larry Summers came to light this week, revealing the pair acted as confidants.
Their correspondence, spanning 2013 to early 2019, reveal the two men sharing private – and at times improper – opinions on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to determine why [the] American elite think if u kill your baby by violence and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your entry to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and neglect it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,”} Summers emailed to Epstein in a 2017 message. However made advances toward a few women 10 years ago and cannot work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an enrollment controversy after a previously incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making discriminatory comments about female academics, went on to say in the email 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 population.”
Summers was once a leading light in liberal circles – a ex- treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a steadfast presence in the left-leaning punditry. But doubts have persisted about his association with Epstein, a long-standing 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 the release of a prior tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers said that he “profoundly regrets being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Left-leaning lawmakers made public 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, Republican lawmakers issued a larger collection of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued amicable contact with the adjudicated child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the final email exchange taking place only months before Epstein’s detention.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and association” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and industry figures.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“she is clever. ensuring you atone for previous missteps,” Epstein wrote 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. “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 contributed 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 academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he admitted guilt to child sex offenses in 2008.
By that time Obama’s star was rising. Summers would ultimately secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers left the White House, he began soliciting 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 reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “more than” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
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