Epstein-dogged Larry Summers to quit teaching at Harvard

Fallout from the Epstein files across elite circles of academia deepened Wednesday when Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary and the ex-president of Harvard University, said he will resign from his teaching appointments at the end of the academic year.

Summers has been on leave since November, when a cache of emails released by the House Oversight Committee revealed the extent of his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Summers subsequently retreated from his public commitments, and since then, documents from the Justice Department’s Epstein files containing the two men’s correspondences have further damaged Summers’ reputation.

In a statement Wednesday first reported by The Harvard Crimson, Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said Summers will remain on leave until he retires at the end of the academic year. He will also resign as co-director of Harvard’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Newton said.

“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 in his own statement.

Records released from investigations into Epstein show that Summers sought advice from the sex offender regarding a host of personal matters, including on pursuing women. The documents also show that he was once named the backup executor of Epstein’s will, though he was no longer designated as such when Epstein died by suicide in 2019.

Summers has not been accused of wrongdoing.

A growing list of people are facing consequences after the latest Epstein files release.

On Tuesday, Dr. Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize winner, resigned as the co-director of Columbia University’s neuroscience institute over his ties to Epstein.

Axel, who shared a Nobel in medicine in 2004 for his work on the sense of smell, announced his resignation as the head of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute on Tuesday. He called his relationship with Epstein “a serious error in judgment” that he deeply regrets.

“I apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues. I recognize the problems this has caused, and I will work to restore this trust,” Axel said in a statement through Columbia.

“What has emerged about Epstein’s appalling conduct, the harm that he has caused to so many people, makes my association with him all the more painful and inexcusable,” he said.

Axel, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, will remain as a professor at Columbia. He also stepped down as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Epstein was known to have surrounded himself with renowned scientists. Axel made numerous appearances in the Epstein files and maintained correspondence with the financier long after he was convicted of sex crimes in Florida in 2008.

According to the documents, Axel made multiple visits to Epstein’s home in Manhattan and was invited to Epstein’s Little St. James Island — where Epstein trafficked girls and women — though it’s unclear if the trip occurred.

Axel spoke highly of him to New York Magazine in December 2007, more than a year after Epstein was indicted on state charges in Florida.

“He has the ability to make connections that other minds can’t make,” Axel told the magazine. “He is extremely smart and probing.”

Columbia said in a statement that it had no evidence that Axel violated any law or university policy.

“However, Dr. Axel made clear that in light of this past association, and the continued fallout from the release of DOJ files, he felt it appropriate to relinquish his position as co-director,” the university said.

A number of high-profile people in the U.S. have faced professional repercussions over their ties to Epstein after the Justice Department’s release of files on the late financier. Several people were revealed to have had relationships with Epstein that lasted longer and were more intimate than they previously acknowledged.

In Europe, multiple prominent figures are facing criminal investigations over their ties to Epstein.