Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will resign from his remaining roles at Harvard University over histies 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 companyOpenAIand 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."
Since 2006, when Summers stepped down as Harvard's president, he held what the university described as one of its most distinguished professorial positions, theCharles W. Eliot University Professor. He was also co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard's Kennedy School.
"Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues," Summers said.
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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.
Epsteindied by suicideat a federal jail in New York City in 2019. In recent months, the Justice Department has released millions of documents from itsEpstein files. In the U.K., the files have led to the arrest of formerPrince Andrewas well as the country's former ambassador to the U.S.,Peter Mandelson, on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Andrew has denied any wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein, and Mandelson's law firm Mishcon de Raya said he wants to cooperate with police and clear his name.
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