Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, announced that he will scale back his public commitments, according to the university’s student newspaper. The announcement comes after the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released seven years of correspondence between Summers, a longtime figure in and supporter of the Democratic Party, and financier Jeffrey Epstein.

In a statement released Monday to The Harvard Crimson, Summers said it was part of an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

The documents show that the two men exchanged messages as late as July 5, 2019 — one day before Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges, but years after he was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.

In the hundreds of messages made public, Summers appeared to express trust in Epstein and confided in him about his efforts to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman he referred to as a mentee,

One message from November 2018 shows Epstein describing himself as Summers’ “wing man,” and the correspondence indicates he continued advising Summers on the matter for several months.

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers wrote in his statement to The Crimson.

“I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” he added.

Summers currently holds several professional roles, including serving as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress – a left-wing think tank – as well as a paid columnist for Bloomberg News, and a member of the board at OpenAI.