Larry Summers
Cameron Costa | CNBC
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Monday that he was stepping back from all public engagements amid fallout from the publication of emails between him and notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” Summers said in a statement obtained by CNBC.
“While I continue to fulfill my teaching responsibilities, I will be stepping back from public engagements as part of my broader efforts,” said Summers, a former Harvard University president who teaches at the school.
Summers is a board member of OpenAI. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg News.
CNBC has reached out to OpenAI for comment.
Summer’s statement came after Harvard newspaper The Crimson published an article detailing his emails with Epstein. This article came to light last week when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released more than 20,000 documents obtained through a subpoena from Epstein’s estate.
U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photo taken on March 28, 2017 for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services’ sex offender registry and obtained by Reuters on July 10, 2019.
New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services | Handout | Reuters
The Crimson noted that while Summers was “maintaining a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he sought advice from a longtime associate: convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.”
Emails and text messages between the two men from November 2018 and July 2019 revealed that Summers, who was and is married, “reached out to Epstein and asked him for advice in finding the woman,” the newspaper reported.
That period came a decade after Epstein pleaded guilty in a Florida court to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.
In the emails and text messages, Epstein quickly reached out with assurances and suggestions, describing himself as Summers’ “wingman” in a November 2018 message. ” remarked the Crimson.
“I don’t think I’m going anywhere with her right now except as a business mentor,” Summers wrote that same month. “I think I’m in the very warmly seen category in the rearview mirror right now.”
“She must be very confused or maybe she wants to interrupt me but really wants a professional connection so she is holding on to it.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Harvard law professor, told CNN that Harvard should cut its ties with Summers.
Summer is director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School and is teaching five courses at Harvard this semester, according to the Crimson.
Warren said Summers “couldn’t be trusted” with the students given his past relationship with Epstein.
“For decades, Larry Summers has demonstrated a passion for serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to pander to a convicted sex offender demonstrates tremendously poor judgment,” Warren told CNN.
“If he has been so unable to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein, even after all that has been publicly known about Epstein’s sex crimes against underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions – or to educate a generation of students at Harvard or elsewhere.”
On Friday, at President Donald Trump’s request, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had asked Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to investigate Epstein’s ties to Summers, former President Bill Clinton, billionaire technology investor Reid Hoffman and bank JPMorgan Chase.
Trump himself is a former friend of Epstein. The president has been under fire for months over the Justice Department’s refusal to release investigative files related to Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on federal child trafficking charges.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a measure that would force the DOJ to release the Epstein files.
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