Ex-US treasury chief takes leave from Harvard following Epstein email release

Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers abruptly went on leave Wednesday from teaching at Harvard University, where he once served as president, over recently released emails showing he maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Mr Summers’ spokesperson said.

Mr Summers had been retreating from his public commitments amid the fallout of the email revelation, but he had maintained that he would continue teaching economics classes at Harvard.

Yet by Wednesday evening, Mr Summers had not only retreated from his teaching classes but also as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Centre for Business and Government with the Kennedy Harvard School.

“Mr Summers has decided it’s in the best interest of the Centre for him to go on leave from his role as Director as Harvard undertakes its review. His co-teachers will complete the remaining three class sessions of the courses he has been teaching with them this semester, and he is not scheduled to teach next semester,” Mr Summers’ spokesperson Steven Goldberg said.

It was not immediately clear if Mr Summers would return to teaching in the upcoming semester. Mr Summers’ decision to go on leave was first reported by The Harvard Crimson.

Harvard did not mention Mr Summers by name in its decision to restart an investigation, but the move follows the release of emails showing that he was friendly with Epstein long after the financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008.

By Wednesday, the once highly regarded economics expert had been facing increased scrutiny over choosing to stay in the teaching role.

Some students even filmed his appearance in shock as he appeared before a class of undergraduates on Tuesday, while stressing he thought it was important to continue teaching.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Summers severed ties with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

The emails include messages in which Mr Summers appeared to be getting advice from Epstein about pursuing a romantic relationship with someone who viewed him as an “economic mentor”.

“im a pretty good wing man , no?” Epstein wrote on November 30, 2018.

The next day, Mr Summers told Epstein he had texted the woman, telling her he “had something brief to say to her”.

“Am I thanking her or being sorry re my being married. I think the former,” he wrote.

Mr Summers’ wife, Elisa New, also emailed Epstein multiple times, including a 2015 message in which she thanked him for arranging financial support for a poetry project she directs.

The gift he arranged “changed everything for me”, she wrote.

“It really means a lot to me, all financial help aside, Jeffrey, that you are rooting for me and thinking about me,” she wrote.

Ms New, an English professor emerita at Harvard, did not respond to an email seeking comment on Wednesday.

An earlier review completed in 2020 found that Epstein visited Harvard’s campus more than 40 times after his 2008 sex-crimes conviction and was given his own office and unfettered access to a research centre he helped establish.

The professor who provided the office was later barred from starting new research or advising students for at least two years.

On Tuesday, Mr Summers appeared before his class at Harvard, where he teaches The Political Economy of Globalisation to undergraduates with Robert Lawrence, a professor with the Harvard Kennedy School.

“Some of you will have seen my statement of regret expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr Epstein and that I’ve said that I’m going to step back from public activities for a while. But I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations,” he said.

Mr Summers’ remarks were captured on video by several students, but no one appeared to publicly respond to his comments.

Mr Summers served as treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 under president Bill Clinton. He was Harvard’s president for five years from 2001 to 2006.