Larry Summers resigning from Harvard University over Jeffrey Epstein ties
(CBS NEWS) – According to CBS News, Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will resign from his remaining roles at Harvard University over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the school confirmed to CBS News on Wednesday.
Summers will retire at the end of the academic year but will remain on leave until then, a Harvard spokesperson said in a statement.
Summers stepped back from his public commitments in November after the release of messages between him and the late convicted sex offender. He also resigned from the board of AI company OpenAI and numerous other positions at such places as Bloomberg News, The New York Times, and the Center for American Progress.
“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” Summers said in a statement Wednesday. “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.”
He added, “Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues.”
Summers was Harvard’s president from 2001 to 2006 after serving as treasury secretary for then-President Bill Clinton between 1999 and 2001. He was director of the National Economic Council in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011.
Dozens of messages between Summers and Epstein were among documents from Epstein’s estate that were released by the House Oversight Committee in November. Summers has not been accused of wrongdoing, but the emails showed that the two communicated on a regular basis, even after Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida, but before he was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019.
