Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Monday he will step back from public commitments following the release of emails showing his communications with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
“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 continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort,” said Summers, a former president of Harvard University who teaches at the school.
READ: Congress faces growing calls to release Epstein files (
Summer’s statement came after Harvard’s newspaper, the Crimson, published an article detailing his emails with Epstein, which came to light last week when the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more than 20,000 documents it obtained pursuant to a subpoena from Epstein’s estate.
Born in 1954, he became one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard University’s history and later served as its president from 2001 to 2006. Summers gained international recognition as Chief Economist of the World Bank, where he worked on development economics and global policy.
In the U.S. government, he served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001, helping shape financial and economic policy during the Clinton administration. He later became Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, playing a major role in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
Beyond public service, Summers is a widely cited commentator on inflation, fiscal policy, and technological change. He continues to teach, write, and advise organizations, remaining an influential voice in economic and public policy debates.
The Crimson noted that when Summers was “pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he sought guidance from a longtime associate: convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.”
The Jeffrey Epstein scandal centers on the wealthy financier who was arrested in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking involving underage girls. Epstein had long cultivated connections with powerful figures in politics, business, academia, and entertainment, which intensified public scrutiny of how he avoided serious legal consequences for years.
In 2008, he received a controversial plea deal in Florida that allowed him to serve minimal jail time despite extensive evidence of abuse; this agreement later became a focus of outrage and official review.
Following his 2019 arrest, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York, with his death ruled a suicide, though the circumstances fueled widespread suspicion and conspiracy theories. His longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was later convicted for her role in recruiting and grooming minors for Epstein. The scandal continues to raise questions about abuse of power, institutional failures, and the protection of victims.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and a former professor at Harvard Law, told CNN that Harvard should sever its ties to Summers.
“For decades, Larry Summers has demonstrated his attraction to serving the wealthy and well-connected, but his willingness to cozy up to a convicted sex offender demonstrates monumentally bad judgment,” Warren told CNN.
“If he had so little ability to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein even after all that was publicly known about Epstein’s sex offenses involving underage girls, then Summers cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers, and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.”
Summers is a member of the board of OpenAI. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg News.
As the fallout continues, the focus is likely to remain on how prominent figures and the institutions connected to them respond to the ethical challenges such associations raise.