Harvard is launching an investigation into its former president, Lawrence Summers, delivering the latest blow to the economist and former Democratic official outed for his close ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
The university said the probe is looking at Mr. Summers’s email conversations with Epstein, which emerged among the tens of thousands of pages of Epstein documents released by the House Oversight Committee, The Harvard Crimson reported.
“The University is conducting a review of information concerning individuals at Harvard included in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents to evaluate what actions may be warranted,” Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Swain told the student newspaper.
Mr. Summers served as treasury secretary under President Clinton and top economic adviser to President Obama. He was Harvard’s president for five years.
He is now under scrutiny after the emails revealed his close friendship with the disgraced financier, a friendship that continued after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor and forced to register as a sex offender.
Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. The death was ruled a suicide.
Mr. Summers is among several Democratic figures revealed in the Epstein files, which include Justice Department investigatory files and documents from the Epstein estate. Other Democrats named in the files are former President Bill Clinton, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, U.S. Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
President Trump, a Republican, is also named in the documents. The files are now set to be made public after Congress this week passed legislation to force the release of the files, and Mr. Trump vowed to sign it into law.
Everyone who has been linked to Epstein has denied wrongdoing.
The Harvard investigation of Mr. Summers will scour information revealed in the files, which include hundreds of messages between Mr. Summers and Epstein.
The probe will also target other people associated with the university, including nearly a dozen current and former Harvard affiliates and Mr. Summers’ wife, Alisa New, who is a former Harvard professor, the paper said.
Mr. Summers briefly addressed the messages during his university class, expressing shame and regret.
“I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations. And so, with your permission, we’re going to go forward and talk about the material in the class,” Mr. Summers told the class.
Harvard’s probe comes after it released a report in 2020 about Epstein’s ties to the university. The report revealed that Epstein donated about $9 million to the school between 1998 and 2008. In response, Harvard agreed to implement new guidelines on accepting potentially contentious gifts.
Mr. Summers announced Monday he would step away from public commitments but continue his role at the university, where he is director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he said in a statement. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
He then ended his positions with the Center for American Progress, Yale’s Budget Lab advisory group, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development.
On Wednesday, he resigned from the board of directors of the OpenAI Foundation.
Earlier this week, Mr. Trump took to Truth Social to request that the Justice Department and the FBI investigate Democrats’ relationship with Epstein, including Mr. Clinton and Mr. Hoffman. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she ordered a top federal prosecutor to lead the investigation.
