Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard president, was exchanging direct text messages with Jeffrey Epstein as recently as April 2019 — three months before Epstein's federal arrest on sex trafficking charges.
The exchanges appear in forensic extracts from Epstein's seized iPhone, filed as evidence in federal court. Documents from the 2,590-file Summers corpus show the two men in casual, ongoing contact through the spring of 2019.
Get the full documents delivered to your inbox — subscribe to the InvArchives newsletter.
Texting from the Hospital
On April 28, 2019, Larry Summers messaged Epstein with a medical update: "I indeed have Bilateral tendon rupture. Surgery tmrw. Long recuperation. May be to ask sympathy but deserve it." He followed with his location: "At MGH" — Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The texts are contained in evidence file vol00009-efta00517294-pdf, sourced from device image NYC024329.aff4, one of the forensic extracts in the DOJ's court production.
The exchange shows Summers sharing a significant personal health development — surgery the following morning — with Jeffrey Epstein.
Three Months Before the Arrest
Two days later, on April 30, 2019 — ten weeks before Epstein's July 6 arrest — Summers messaged Epstein: "Pretty miserable. Yellow peril. Strategy working as predicted."
He followed: "I'm being breezy and noting folk around. She is sliding back to asking about which papers. I'm acting happy."
Epstein replied: "tell her, the downside is that you can no longer get on bended knee."
The exchange, in vol00009-efta00517328-pdf, shows the two discussing unidentified third parties, papers, and unnamed strategy — continuing a relationship that persisted into Epstein's final weeks before federal arrest.
What Epstein Sent Summers
On April 23, 2019, Epstein forwarded Summers a link to a Nature article on sexual harassment at academic physics conferences. The article reported: "Of the 455 people who responded, 338 reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment."
The exchange, in vol00009-efta00784625-pdf, places Summers in the same message thread as Lawrence Krauss, a physicist who faced his own harassment allegations in 2018.
Epstein's choice to share this specific article with Summers — a former Harvard president who resigned in 2006 amid controversy over his remarks about women in science — is part of the court-filed evidence record.
The Scope of the Archive
The 2,590 documents linking Summers to the Epstein file are forensic extracts from two device images: NYC024329.aff4 and NYC024362.aff4, both part of the DOJ's court production containing hundreds of thousands of individual messages.
January 2019 texts in vol00009-efta00783330-pdf show the same casual, familiar tone months earlier — confirming the relationship extended well into the final year before Epstein's arrest.
Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, and died in federal custody on August 10. No charges were brought against Summers.
What the Documents Establish
None of the messages constitute criminal evidence against Summers. The forensic record does establish that a former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Ivy League president maintained an active personal relationship with Epstein through spring 2019 — more than a decade after Epstein's 2008 Florida conviction and weeks before his second federal arrest.
The 2,590 documents are a subset of the broader 1.3 million-page DOJ production, a fraction of which has been publicly processed by InvArchives.
All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
Share this investigation
This analysis references publicly released documents from the Epstein case archive. All individuals mentioned are presumed innocent unless convicted in a court of law. Language such as “documents indicate” reflects what appears in source materials, not conclusions of guilt. Readers are encouraged to review the cited source documents directly.