SCANDAL: Former Clinton Treasury Secretary steps down from public commitments after Epstein emails exposed

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From the New York Times: Larry Summers, Harvard’s former president and a former Treasury secretary, said Monday that he would be stepping back from public commitments following the release of emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Mr. Summers said in a statement Monday. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”

Mr. Summers added that he would continue teaching as an economics professor at Harvard, though he did not specify which public commitments he would be stepping back from.

The Yale Budget Lab said Mr. Summers has indicated he would be withdrawing from his role in its advisory group. The Hamilton Project, an economics policy arm of the Brookings Institution, said the same. A spokeswoman for the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said Mr. Summers would be ending his fellowship there immediately. The Center for Global Development, a think tank, said Mr. Summers is stepping down as board chair.

Summers, now 70, served in the Treasury Department throughout the 8 years of Bill Clinton’s presidential term, first as Undersecretary, then Deputy Secretary, and finally as Treasury Secretary.

He was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, then came back to serve during the Obama administration as Director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2011.

The New York Times noted that a business relationship between Summers and Epstein was previously known. However, the report adds:

But emails released last week showed a cozier relationship that included Mr. Summers seeking romantic advice and trading banter with Mr. Epstein over several years. The communications stretched to 2019, long after Mr. Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges related to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

The Harvard Crimson released a report on Monday detailing some of the scandalous exchanges Summers had with Epstein.

When former Harvard President Lawrence H. 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.

In a sequence of texts and emails between November 2018 and July 5, 2019, Summers turned to Epstein for advice on his pursuit of the woman. Epstein was quick to chime in with assurance and suggestions, describing himself in one November 2018 message as Summers’ “wing man.”

The messages became public after House Republicans released more than 20,000 files from the Epstein estate on Wednesday. Summers’ correspondence with Epstein, a financier who pled guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, ends just one day before Epstein was arrested on new sex trafficking charges.

On Monday, Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called for Summers to step down, saying, “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.”

“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,” Warren said.

READ MORE from the New York Times.

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