BREAKING: Harvard’s Larry Summers Forced Out After Epstein Emails Expose Stunning Hypocrisy
Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard economist Larry Summers is departing the prestigious university following the release of deeply troubling emails that revealed his sustained personal relationship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Summers, 71, will leave at the end of the current academic year and simultaneously step down as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, a post he had held since 2011, according to a statement from Harvard spokesman Jason Newton.
Newton confirmed the departure is directly tied to the university’s ongoing review of Epstein-related documents recently made public by the federal government.
The resignation caps months of mounting pressure. Summers had been on leave since November after initially attempting to remain in the classroom despite explosive backlash when emails surfaced showing him using racial slurs and discussing his pursuit of women in exchanges with Epstein.
Those emails, first reported by the Harvard Crimson, showed that Summers maintained his friendship with Epstein well past the financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, and continued right up until the eve of Epstein’s 2019 arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges. A December report from the Financial Times revealed that Summers had been written into Epstein’s will, a detail that intensified calls for accountability.
Summers served as Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton and as director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, making his ties to Epstein particularly damning given his years at the center of Democratic economic policy.
In a statement, Summers called the resignation a “difficult decision” but signaled he intends to remain a public voice, saying he looks forward to “research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues.”
For many, that is not enough. The damage is done, and no carefully worded exit statement changes the record.