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One-time economic leader Larry Summers is leaving the board at the artificial intelligence firm, just several days after a batch of electronic messages between him and notorious criminal the accused trafficker became publicly available.

Summers stated in an announcement that he was "grateful for the privilege to have participated, excited about the potential of the organization, and anticipate tracking their development".

Summers, who once headed the Ivy League institution, declared on earlier this week that he would be scaling back from public responsibilities due to his association with Epstein.

Email Communications

The freshly disclosed messages showed that the official corresponded with Epstein until the day before the financier's 2019 arrest for accused sex trafficking of minors.

In another announcement, the technology organization expressed it understood the economist's determination to step down.

"We acknowledge his numerous inputs and the perspective he brought to the Board," the organization remarked.

Political Context

This development follows after both chambers of Congress decided on this week to pass a measure that would mandate the US justice department to release its records on Epstein.

The measure will then move to the desk of the White House for approval. Trump has said he expects to approve the legislation, after changing his view on the subject following objections from his supporters.

Email Contents

A batch of financier-linked emails made public by the legislative panel recently mentioned numerous prominent individuals in the billionaire's previous network, without implying any illegal behavior by those individuals.

The messages revealed that Summers and Epstein often met for meals, with the billionaire often trying to link Summers to prominent world leaders.

Personal Accountability

After the correspondence were released with the wider community, Summers stated he assumed "complete accountability for my poor decision to maintain interacting with Mr Epstein".

He added that he hoped "to reestablish faith and mend bonds with the persons most important to me".

Professional History

The economist occupied leadership roles under party leaders; acting as economic leader under Bill Clinton, and as leader of the White House economic team under President Obama.

He presided over Harvard from 2001 to 2006 and continues to be a academic there. When announcing his withdrawal from public roles earlier on Monday, he stated he would continue his academic responsibilities.

Other Impacts

Following the economist's announcement on Monday, the policy organization, a left-leaning think tank in the capital where the professor was a senior fellow, verified that Summers was no longer associated with the institution.

The former official joined the directorate of the technology firm, which makes the AI chatbot, in the previous year - following a defeated move to oust its CEO OpenAI's head.