Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, will stop teaching at the school while it investigates his connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a spokesman for Summers said on Wednesday.
Emails recently released by the US House oversight committee reignited questions about Summers’ relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors. Many of the messages indicated a friendship that lasted well into 2019. Contact only ceased shortly before Epstein was arrested in July of that same year.
The Harvard Crimson was first to report the news.
Steven Goldberg, the spokesperson for Summers, told the newspaper that Summers, an economist and former US treasury secretary, is not scheduled to teach next semester, and that his co-teachers will take over the remaining classes of the current semester.
Summers will also take immediate leave from his role as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, which he has led since 2011.
“Mr Summers has decided it’s in the best interest of the center for him to go on leave from his role as director as Harvard undertakes its review,”Goldberg said.
The announcement comes mere days after Summers announced that he would step back from public commitments in light of the resurfaced messages with Epstein but would continue to teach.
In the emails, Summers appears to ask Epstein for advice on pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman that he describes as a mentee. In one message from 2018, Epstein refers to himself as Summers’ “wingman”.
Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill directing the justice department to release more files related to Epstein. In a Truth Social post, the president referenced Summers’ friendship with Epstein, as well as other high-profile Democrats.
Earlier on Wednesday, Summers resigned from the board of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI. “In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,” Summers said in a statement. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company, and look forward to following their progress.”
Summers has stepped down or been let go from multiple high-profile appointments in recent days, including board positions at the Center for Global Development, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Budget Lab at Yale, and the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution.
Harvard earlier investigated its ties to Epstein, finding that the disgraced financier donated about $9m to the school between 1998 and 2008.
