Starting Point: The Epstein-egghead connection

 

November 19, 2025 📆 Nov. 18-19: Join us for Globe Summit, where you can meet the journalists and newsmakers behind the headlines. SIGN UP HERE Ian Prasad Philbrick Starting Point writer X: @ianprasad Good morning. Today we’re bringing you the latest about documents related to Jeffrey Epstein — and the fallout for a prominent Massachusetts couple who corresponded with him for years. But first, here’s what else is going on: Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation forcing the Trump administration to release Epstein-related files, sending it to President Trump. But even if Trump signs it, some backers worry that the investigations he ordered into any Democrats mentioned in the files could delay their release. The US Education Department moved billions of dollars in grant programs it oversees to other agencies, accelerating the administration’s plan to shut down the department. 311 Omakase in the South End became the first Boston restaurant to earn a Michelin star after the prestigious guide added the city to its latest northeast edition. See the other local restaurants Michelin recognized and read Globe restaurant critic Devra First’s analysis. Write to us at startingpoint@globe.com. To subscribe, sign up here. TODAY’S STARTING POINT Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers and his wife, Elisa New, walked together during the Allen & Company Conference in 2022 in Sun Valley, Idaho. KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES Larry Summers has long been paid to exercise judgment. As the president of Harvard, he shepherded the world’s most prestigious university. As President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary and President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council director, he counseled the world’s most powerful men. As an adviser to leading think tanks and as a TV and newspaper pundit, Summers sat in judgment of prominent people and their decisions. So when newly released emails showed that Summers maintained a chummy correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein for years after the latter pleaded guilty to sex crimes, the fallout was swift. Summers said he would step back from public commitments and resigned from several of his positions. Summers wasn’t the only powerful academic to keep in touch with Epstein. So did others — including Summers’ wife, Elisa New, an emeritus Harvard literature professor who specializes in analyzing poetry. How did a couple paid for their discernment make what Summers now calls “a major error” of judgment? What emerges from the Epstein emails is a parable about intellectual clubbiness, proximity to power, and the pressure to fund-raise. Money, first Epstein’s crimes can make it easy to forget that he was also a wealthy financier who donated millions to hospitals, universities, and nonprofits. Even at well-endowed institutions like Harvard, academics often rely on philanthropy. The emails suggest New was no exception, showing her soliciting support from Epstein for Poetry in America, an educational initiative she directs. In 2014, New emailed Epstein after hearing that he wanted to contribute. “Hallelujah and thank you a million times,” she wrote. (The Globe reported yesterday that a 2020 Harvard review of Epstein’s giving didn’t mention that gift to New. Harvard says it will investigate Summers and New’s links to Epstein, while New says she regrets taking Epstein’s money and maintaining contact with him.) In 2015, New sent Epstein a copy of a letter about “my needs in the coming year” and signed off with a personal touch: “It really means a lot to me, all financial help aside, Jeffrey, that you are rooting for me and thinking about me.” Intellectual exercise Some of New’s fund-raising emails read like flattery. But others suggest she and Summers took a genuine intellectual interest in the sex offender, who cultivated a scholarly air by cozying up to academics, holding seminars on Harvard’s campus, and professing a fascination with science. The emails show the brainy couple corresponding casually with Epstein about geopolitics, math, and literature. In 2016, Summers referenced President Trump’s “proximity” to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and “mindless response” to Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s death. Elsewhere, the men traded ideas about mathematical probability. One of New’s emails asks, “When are we reading Whitman together.” She recommended that Epstein read Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia,” which New called the story of “a man whose life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl.” New also discussed “Lolita,” Vladimir Nabokov’s novel about an older man who sexually abuses a 12-year-old girl. (Epstein’s private jet was nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”) Proximity to power Epstein’s purported knowledge of other elites may have had its own allure. Summers occasionally ran gossip by Epstein. “How plausible is idea that trump is real cocaine user?” he wrote in 2016. In some cases, access seems to have gone both ways. In the same thread, Epstein asked Summers whether someone at Harvard could show a friend around campus. (Summers said yes.) For friendship It’s impossible to know how Summers and New really felt about Epstein, but they may simply have seen him as a friend. In one email, New lumped Epstein in with her “friends and supporters.” Summers made off-color jokes and, despite his marriage to New, sought Epstein’s advice about wooing a woman Summers described as a mentee. (Epstein responded sympathetically, calling himself Summers’ “wing man.”) There’s no evidence that Summers or New participated in Epstein’s crimes. For some, though, the correspondence will raise questions about their judgment in other areas. But that’s a judgment you’ll have to make for yourself. 🧩 2 Down: Reheats | ☀️ 46° Sunny and calm POINTS OF INTEREST What goes up: …won’t come down anytime soon, at least in the case of Boston rents, which demand and lagging construction have kept staggeringly high. But organizers say they’re on track to put a measure on next year’s ballot that would limit annual rent increases in Massachusetts to 5 percent. New twist: Karen Read sued Massachusetts State Police investigators and key witnesses at her murder trials, accusing them of framing her for her boyfriend’s 2022 death. A jury acquitted her of killing him. Hostile work environment: A Suffolk County jury awarded $1 million in damages to a fired Boston police officer who testified that other officers would comment about her sex life. Brian Walshe: The Cohasset man accused of killing and dismembering his wife pleaded guilty to two lesser charges: willfully conveying a human body and misleading a police investigation. Walshe will still stand trial for murder. Going dark: High-profile Boston TV journalists are calling it quits as staff and cost cuts take a toll on their work. A pile of lawsuits: Investors say Andrew Collins, a South Boston developer whose brother is a Massachusetts state senator, owes them $143 million over a stalled real estate project on Dorchester Avenue. Collins disputes their claims. ‘It’s kind of wholesome’: This sex shop has been a Cambridge landmark for generations. With the store closing next week, its owner is reflecting on what it meant to customers. On pause: A federal court blocked new congressional maps that Texas Republicans drew to benefit their party’s US House candidates in next year’s midterm elections. Texas appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. (AP) ‘Things happen’: In the Oval Office, Trump defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after a journalist asked about the 2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “He knew nothing about it,” Trump claimed, contradicting a US intelligence assessment that MBS approved Khashoggi’s death. (WashPost 🎁) UFO: What is that mysterious green glow New Englanders have spotted in the night sky? The Globe’s Ken Mahan knows. (Hint: It isn’t “an alien baby.”) BESIDE THE POINT By David Beard Thomas Stockton, president of the Belchertown Historical Association, with two portraits that were stolen from the Stone House Museum in the 1990s. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff 🎨 Not the Louvre: Who knew that most art thefts take place in smaller museums? And that New England (apart from the big Gardner Museum heist) was not immune from these smaller-time thefts? We find several were inside jobs. 💌 Love Letters: “I’ve used ChatGPT as a therapist.” Is that bad? 🦃 Thanksgiving overnight guests? Egads! Where to start? First tip: Make breakfast and lunch self-service. 🎸 In the Saddle, Again: Aerosmith is back — collaborating with a 28-year-old English singer named YUNGBLUD, who was asked growing up if Steven Tyler was his dad. (We believe the answer is no.) YUNGBLUD co-wrote four songs on their new EP, which also includes a revamp of a jewel from Aerosmith’s classic 1976 album “Rocks.” 😟 Accept a job, leave a job? Here are the life decisions people dread the most, according to psychologists. (Popular Science) 🪲 Booklice: No, not the head-scratching kind. These mold-eating bugs and scavenger beetles ruined 40,000 volumes in a Massachusetts community college library. What to do next? A deloused library has gotten new books and digital help from others. 📷 See: These high school photojournalists are champions in their own right. Thanks for reading Starting Point. This newsletter was edited by David Beard, who is still grossed out about booklice. ❓ Have a question for the team? Email us at startingpoint@globe.com. ✍🏼 If someone sent you this newsletter, you can sign up for your own copy. 📬 Delivered Monday through Friday.

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