Senator Elizabeth Warren is taking aim at Harvard again, this time demanding the university cut ties with former president Lawrence Summers after newly released emails revealed years of personal contact between Summers and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The emails, released last week by the House Oversight Committee, show that Summers maintained an unusually close relationship with Epstein well after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving underage girls. CNN reported the details Monday, triggering Warren’s latest public crusade.

Warren, a former Harvard Law School professor who has kept deep ties to the school, said in a statement that Summers’ continued friendship with Epstein showed “monumentally bad judgement” and should disqualify him from advising policymakers or teaching students.

She said that if Summers could not distance himself from Epstein after the world knew about Epstein’s crimes, then he “cannot be trusted” in any position of influence at Harvard or anywhere else.

Harvard and Summers did not respond to requests for comment. Summers told The Crimson last week that he had “great regrets” about the relationship and called it “a major error of judgement.”

The newly disclosed messages reveal a steady stream of personal exchanges between the two men. Summers remained in regular contact with Epstein until July 5, 2019, the day before Epstein was arrested on new federal sex trafficking charges.

Across seven years of correspondence, Summers and Epstein discussed politics, personal relationships, and Summers’ romantic interest in a woman he identified as a mentee. Summers used the codename “peril” when talking about her and described her as “Smart Assertive and clear Gorgeous.”

In one exchange, Summers asked Epstein whether it was “meaningful” to forecast “my getting horizontal w peril.” In another, Summers forwarded Epstein an email from a London-based macroeconomist within minutes of receiving it. Epstein replied that the woman was “already beginning to sound needy :) nice.”

Summers has taught at Harvard for more than twenty years and holds the university’s highest faculty rank. He is currently teaching several courses, including two large undergraduate classes.

The fallout from the release of the emails has spread far beyond Cambridge. Epstein’s ties to Summers and other prominent figures have drawn scrutiny from both parties.

On Friday, President Donald Trump called on the Department of Justice to investigate Epstein’s connections to Summers, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and several major financial institutions. Attorney General Pam Bondi launched a probe hours later.

The timing of Warren’s statement is not accidental. Her comments arrive just days before a House vote on a bill that would require the federal government to release all documents it holds from the Epstein estate. Trump, whose name appears hundreds of times in the Wednesday release, reversed course Sunday and announced support for the measure.

The bill is expected to pass the House, but the Senate outcome is uncertain.

Warren and Summers have a long and rocky history. The two clashed during the Obama years over financial regulation, and Warren publicly opposed his potential nomination to lead the Federal Reserve. In 2022, she accused Summers of living in a “soundproof bubble” after he criticized the Biden administration.

Now the two are back in the spotlight, pulled there by the resurfaced emails of a disgraced financier who continues to cast a shadow over Harvard and the powerful people who kept ties with him.