Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was banned for life from a prestigious academic society over revelations of his ties with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers was one of the biggest figures of the recent release of the Epstein files by Congress, a trove of documents highlighting Epstein’s high-level connections. The list of groups disassociating from former President Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary grew on Tuesday, when the American Economic Association, a nonprofit scholarly association dedicated to economic research, banned him for life in a scathing rebuttal.
“The AEA condemns Mr. Summers’ conduct, as reflected in publicly reported communications, as fundamentally inconsistent with its standards of professional integrity and with the trust placed in mentors within the economics profession,” the group said in a statement.
It said the ban prevented him from “attending, speaking at, or otherwise participating” in its events. The statement said the move happened after the group accepted Summers’s resignation.
Following last month’s revelations, Summers has resigned from his positions on the board of OpenAI, Harvard, Yale University’s Budget Lab, and at the Center for American Progress, according to the Harvard Crimson.
“In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,” Summers said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company, and look forward to following their progress.”
LARRY SUMMERS STEPS BACK FROM PUBLIC LIFE AFTER MESSAGES TO EPSTEIN REVEALED
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” he said in another statement last month. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
In communications between Summers and Epstein, made long after Epstein became a convicted sex offender, the financier referred to himself as Summers’s “wing man” in 2018, and gave him desired advice for pursuing a woman Summers called his mentee.