Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers said Monday he will step back from “public commitments” after messages between him and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released last week.
“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. “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”
Dozens of messages between Summers and Epstein were included in a trove of documents from Epstein’s estate that was released by the House Oversight Committee last week.
The emails show Summers and Epstein communicated regularly during the last years of Epstein’s life, even as the accused sex trafficker’s public infamy and notoriety grew. Many of the messages were from the late 2010s, well after Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida, but before he was charged with sex trafficking in federal court and taken into custody in July 2019.
In one March 2019 exchange, the pair appeared to banter about a woman that Summers knew in London, with Epstein seeming to offer advice to the Harvard professor.
“I said what are you up to,” Summers wrote in part of one message, describing a conversation with the woman. “She said ‘I’m busy.’ I said awfully coy u are.”
Epstein’s reply read, in part: “shes smart. making you pay for past errors.”
In a separate conversation, Epstein appears to call himself Summers’ “wing man.”
There is no evidence of illegal conduct on the part of Summers.
It’s not clear what public commitments Summers will call off. An economist by training, he has remained a professor at Harvard University since stepping down as the Ivy League school’s president in 2006. He currently teaches two classes at the Harvard Kennedy School on globalization and U.S. economic policy, according to the school’s course catalog.
A former Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration, Summers is an influential voice on economic policy. He advised former President Barack Obama during the financial crisis, and he publicly tangled with the Biden administration over its approach to post-COVID-19 economic stimulus.
Epstein’s ties with Harvard were well known. The late financier donated upward of $9 million to the university prior to his 2008 guilty plea in Florida, Harvard found in a 2020 investigation. The school said it didn’t accept donations from Epstein after that, but he continued to engage with faculty and visit the school dozens of times
CBS News has reached out to Harvard for comment.
President Trump called on the Justice Department last week to investigate Epstein’s relationships with Summers, former President Bill Clinton and other high-profile Democrats. A spokesperson for former President Clinton said he wasn’t aware of Epstein’s actions and didn’t do anything wrong.
Mr. Trump’s own relationship with Epstein has also drawn intense scrutiny. The two men traveled in the same Manhattan and Palm Beach social circles for a period of time, but Mr. Trump says he cut ties many years ago. The president hasn’t been charged with a crime or been accused of wrongdoing.
Epstein regularly brought up Mr. Trump in the emails that were released last week. In one correspondence, Epstein said of the president, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” referring to Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing related to Epstein, and has called the controversy over it a “hoax” perpetuated by Democrats.
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