Larry Summers banned for life from American Economic Association over Epstein ties

Larry Summers, a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, has been issued a lifetime ban by a prominent academic society. This follows the emergence of emails detailing his continued friendly relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, even after Epstein’s conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The American Economic Association (AEA), a nonprofit scholarly body, confirmed it had accepted Summers’ resignation. He is now banned for life from “attending, speaking at, or otherwise participating” in its events.

In a statement, the AEA declared: “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.”

A spokesperson for Summers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Epstein emails include messages in which Summers appeared to be getting advice from Epstein about pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman who viewed him as an “economic mentor.”

“im a pretty good wing man , no?” Epstein wrote on Nov. 30, 2018.

The next day, Summers told Epstein he had texted the woman, telling her he “had something brief to say to her.”

“Am I thanking her or being sorry re my being married. I think the former,” he wrote.

Summers’ wife, Elisa New, also emailed Epstein multiple times, including a 2015 message in which she thanked him for arranging financial support for a poetry project she directs.

After the emails came out last month, Summers went on leave from teaching at Harvard University and from his position as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Other organizations that ended their affiliations with Summers include the Center for American Progress, the Center for Global Development and the Budget Lab at Yale University.

Epstein, who authorities say died by suicide in jail in 2019, was a convicted sex offender with vast connections to wealthy and powerful people, making him a fixture of outrage and conspiracy theories about wrongdoing among American elites.

Summers served as treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Harvard’s president for five years, from 2001 to 2006. When asked about the emails last week, Summers issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life” and that his association with Epstein was a “major error in judgement.”