Harvard professor Larry Summers began a class in a very unorthodox way recently: By admitting that, yes, he’s in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Summers has been facing fallout from last week’s Epstein email dump which showed that the former president of the university and former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton had a long friendship with the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker.
Summers not only maintained contact with Epstein for years after the billionaire financier pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from underage girls in Florida in 2008, his last message was just one day before Epstein was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking minors in July 2019.
The Harvard professor even asked Epstein for dating tips with a woman he described as a “mentee.”
As a result, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) demanded Harvard cut ties with Summers, saying he “cannot be trusted” with students. He also announced on Wednesday he is leaving the board of Open AI.
But after President Donald Trump’s recent demand that the DOJ investigate the ties of prominent Democrats to Epstein, Summers said on Monday he is stepping back from all public commitments except for the classes he still teaches.
The whole scandal around Summers forced him to begin at least one of the classes by addressing the Epstein-sized elephant in the room, according to a clip circulating on social media.
“Some of you may 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 time but that I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations,” he said.
“And so, with your permission, I’m gonna ... we’re gonna go forward and talk about the material in the class.”