Revealed Communications Illustrate Epstein and Larry Summers as Trusted Friends
A series of messages between found guilty offender Jeffrey Epstein and one-time US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as confidants.
These exchanges, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men exchanging private – and at times questionable – opinions on political matters and relationships.
“I’m trying to understand why [the] American elite feel if u take the life of your baby by physical abuse and abandonment it must be not a factor to your admission to Harvard,”|“I’m trying to|I am attempting to|I'm struggling to} figure why [the] American elite believe if u murder your baby by beating and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and are unable to work at a network or think tank. KEEP CONFIDENTIAL THIS IDEA.”
During that period, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making gender-biased comments about women scholars, went on to say in the message 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 previously a key player in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the key architects of Barack Obama’s approach to the financial crisis, and a stalwart figure in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his relationship with Epstein, a longtime contact of Donald Trump. Epstein was charged with a wide-ranging sex trafficking of minors operation before his death in custody in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier batch of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 article, a agent for Summers commented that he “is very sorry for being in contact with Epstein after his guilty verdict”.
Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that imply Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In retaliation, Conservative lawmakers issued a more extensive batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
The documents show that Summers continued congenial 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 wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be instructing the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “participation and association” with Summers, among other influential Democratic figures and corporate executives.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – especially Summers’s disdain for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, shared with Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his overtures toward an unidentified woman, and being turned down.
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein replied 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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “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 named a visiting fellow to perform research. The university later found Epstein “lacked the scholarly credentials visiting fellows normally possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was not prepared 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 eventually secure appointment as director of the White House economic advisory body 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 gifts to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men saw each other a twelve times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After media coverage about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
