Larry Summers, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary who also once served as the president of Harvard University, is stepping back from public life amid the fallout over his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a statement shared with The Harvard Crimson and other outlets on Monday night, Summers said he is retreating in order to “rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest” to him.
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Last week, the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 documents related to the estate of Epstein which featured records of emails shared between Summers and the disgraced financier. Most damning of all was the timeline, which showed Summers maintained the friendship long after Epstein was first convicted of sex crimes in 2008.
“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,” said Summers on Monday, after calling the correspondence a “major error of judgement.”
Summers served as Harvard president from 2001 to 2006, when he resigned in the midst of various public controversies, including his contentious remarks suggesting that men may outperform women in the sciences due to genetic differences. He still serves as a professor at Harvard, and has said he will fulfill his teaching obligations.
TIME has reached out to Summers for further comment.
The emails at the centre of the media storm show that Summers maintained friendly communications with Epstein until as late as March 2019, just months before Epstein died in a New York jail cell when he was in custody once more, awaiting trial on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors. Summers could also be seen exchanging text messages with Epstein in the days ahead of him being taken into custody.
As well as being shown to discuss President Donald Trump, the duo also appeared to talk about women in a disparaging manner throughout their communications.
In one chain of emails from October 2017, Summers said: “I observed that half of the IQ In world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51% of [the] population.”
In the same correspondence, Summers appeared to complain about men being held accountable for their previous actions toward women.
“I’m trying to figure why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank,” he is quoted as saying, alongside the warning: “DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
In another set of emails, dated July. 16, 2018, Summers and Epstein appear to discuss a joint press conference held by President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Do the Russians have stuff on Trump? Today was appalling even by his standards,” said Summers. To which Epstein replied: “Not that I know. I would doubt it. He was totally predictable!” The men are then seen to arrange a phone call for later.
Trump alluded to the correspondence between Epstein and Summers on board Air Force One on Nov. 14, but stopped short of delving into the specifics uncovered in the emails.
The President has fielded a number of questions about the three initial emails released last week by the House Democrats, which showed Epstein alleging that Trump “knew about the girls” and “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with one of them. Trump has long—and fiercely—denied having any prior knowledge of Epstein’s conduct.
When asked about the allegations concerning himself, and what exactly Epstein meant by “knew about the girls,” Trump told reporters: “I know nothing about that.” He then went on to name other high-profile figures known to have had relationships with Epstein. “It’s really what did he mean when he spent all that time with [former President] Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard… Larry Summers, whatever his name is,” said Trump.
(Clinton, who has acknowledged being a former associate of Epstein, has vehemently denied knowledge of his crimes and denied visiting Epstein’s island.)
As for Summer, his retreat from public life comes after significant backlash following the newly-surfaced Epstein emails.
Prior to his announcement, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, herself a former Harvard professor, urged the Ivy League school in her state to sever ties with the former Treasury Secretary.
“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 TIME via an emailed statement on Tuesday.
“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.”