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Former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers is leaving the governing body at the artificial intelligence firm, just a week after a batch of emails between him and deceased financier the disgraced billionaire became public.

He stated in an announcement that he was "grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the organization, and eagerly await observing their development".

The prominent academic, who formerly headed Harvard University, declared on recently that he would be scaling back from public responsibilities due to his connections with the convicted sex offender.

Email Communications

The newly public communications revealed that the economist exchanged messages with Jeffrey Epstein until the day before the financier's 2019 arrest for alleged human trafficking of minors.

In additional comments, the artificial intelligence company expressed it accepted his decision to step down.

"We acknowledge his many contributions and the perspective he provided to the Board," the organization commented.

Congressional Action

This announcement comes after the two houses of the legislative branch voted on recently to pass a measure that would require the federal prosecutors to release its records on the case.

The legislation will then move to the desk of the White House for endorsement. Trump has stated he expects to approve the legislation, after changing his stance on the subject following objections from his followers.

Message Details

A group of Epstein-connected messages disclosed by the Congressional committee recently mentioned several prominent individuals in the financier's past associates, without suggesting any criminal activity by those individuals.

The messages revealed that Summers and Epstein dined together frequently, with he often attempting to introduce Summers to prominent world leaders.

Personal Accountability

After the emails were released with the general audience, Summers stated he accepted "total ownership for my ill-advised decision to continue corresponding with Mr Epstein".

He added that he wanted "to reestablish faith and repair relationships with the individuals most important to me".

Previous Positions

The professor served in leadership roles under party leaders; functioning as economic leader under the former president, and as head of the economic advisory body under the former leader.

He led the institution from the early 2000s and remains a professor there. When stating his withdrawal from public roles recently on Monday, he said he would maintain his academic responsibilities.

Additional Consequences

Following the economist's statement on earlier this week, the Washington think tank, a liberal research organization in Washington where he was a prominent member, confirmed that he was no longer affiliated with the institution.

The former official entered the board of the AI company, which makes the AI chatbot, in 2023 - following a failed attempt to remove its top executive OpenAI's head.