Disclosed Communications Show Epstein and Larry Summers as Close Associates
Multiple messages between adjudicated offender Jeffrey Epstein and former US treasury head Larry Summers have emerged this week, revealing the pair served as close contacts.
Their correspondence, covering 2013 to early 2019, show the two men sharing intimate – and at times improper – views on public affairs and personal connections.
I am attempting to understand why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by violence and neglect it must be irrelevant to your acceptance 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 admission to Harvard,”} Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 communication. Yet flirted with a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
At that time, Harvard University was dealing with an acceptance controversy after a once incarcerated woman’s enrollment to a PhD program. Summers, a ex- president of the university who lost his position amid a controversy after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the correspondence to Epstein: I pointed out that half of the IQ in [the] world was held by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of the populace.”
Summers was once a prominent figure in Democratic circles – a one-time treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s handling to the financial crisis, and a committed figure in the progressive media. But concerns have lingered about his association with Epstein, a former associate of Donald Trump. Epstein was alleged to have run a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his passing in jail in 2019 in New York City.
Following publication of a earlier tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 report, a representative for Summers said that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.
Democratic Party lawmakers made public emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was knew about conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In reply, Republican lawmakers published a larger batch of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.
These records 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 arrest.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that he would be requesting the Department of Justice and the FBI to look into Epstein’s “role and connection” with Summers, among other well-known Democratic figures and business leaders.
In the emails, Summers and Epstein talk about politics – particularly Summers’s dislike for Trump – as well as the aspects of charitable social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his advances toward an unnamed woman, and being turned down.
“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 reiterated his remorse in a recent statement. “I harbor significant regrets in my lifetime,” 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 donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was named a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later found Epstein “was missing the academic qualifications visiting fellows usually possess and his application suggested a course of study Epstein was ill-equipped to pursue”.
Harvard only discontinued accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.
By then Obama’s career was advancing. Summers would ultimately receive appointment as director of the White House NEC from January 2009 until November 2010.
After Summers exited the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor working on a poetry project. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects associated with Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.
After reporting about Epstein’s donations surfaced, New’s charity made a donation “above and beyond” of that received to combatting sex trafficking organizations.
