When billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein needed legal advice, help responding to negative press, or just moral support, he often turned to an unexpected confidante – Kathy Ruemmler, an elite attorney who served two US presidents and was once a top candidate for US attorney general.
As thousands of new documents tied to Epstein have been released, many of those closest to him have paid a steep price for their friendship by forfeiting influential jobs and weathering fierce public blowback. Yet Ruemmler, a former White House counsel for Barack Obama, has maintained a prestigious post as chief legal officer for Goldman Sachs.
The bank has continued to stand by her — even as emails show Epstein calling her “my great defender” and seeking her help pushing back on reports detailing his abuse of underage girls.
A CNN KFile review of Epstein’s emails and travel schedules sheds new light on his relationship with the power-broking lawyer and shows that their ties went far beyond professional advice and into the realm of a friendship.
Among the many high-profile and notable names that appear in the Epstein messages, Ruemmler is one of the most frequently referenced, with more than 100 exchanges between her and Epstein over several years. Epstein’s schedule reveals that he was set to meet with Ruemmler more than 50 times between July 2014 and May 2019, including for lunches and dinners with celebrities, apartment hunting, and personal beauty appointments.
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As early as 2014, the year that Ruemmler left the Obama White House, the pair already appeared close, with Ruemmler telling Epstein in one email, “I’ll be here all week — you may get sick of me.”
In a statement to CNN, Ruemmler said, “In 2014, I barely knew Jeffrey Epstein. My remark was a throwaway line in response to his invitation to attend multiple meetings with business contacts.”
Across the many messages, Ruemmler emerges as a confidant and advocate for Epstein, at times helping him manage his public reputation following his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Epstein’s estate is fighting to keep hundreds of additional emails between Ruemmler and Epstein private, arguing that they are protected by attorney-client privilege. The privilege log shows that Ruemmler continued to communicate with Epstein through at least June 2019 and suggests she was more involved with Epstein’s legal affairs than previously known.
In 2023, Ruemmler told the Wall Street Journal, “I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein.”
In a statement to CNN, Ruemmler referred to Epstein as a “business referral source” when she was at the law firm Latham & Watkins and that she knew him in a “professional capacity” when she served as head of the white collar defense group at the firm. But she said she “did not represent him and was not compensated by him.”
CNN sent a series of questions to Ruemmler and Goldman Sachs prior to publication. Ruemmler provided answers to several of them, but others she declined to directly answer — including whether she was involved with drafting a public relations statement for Epstein or took part in discussions to help him respond to media inquiries about his sexual abuse.
“I was one of a number of lawyers Epstein informally reached out to for advice,” Ruemmler said in her statement to CNN. “I had no knowledge of any new or ongoing unlawful activity on his part.”
‘This is what Kathy suggests’
In one email between Epstein and Ruemmler from June 2018 released by the House Oversight Committee, Ruemmler dismissed reporting on Epstein’s abuse of underage girls as “a novella of rehashed crap,” sending a follow-up email that just said “ugh.”
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Ruemmler in a statement to CNN said she was referring to the article as crap but not the allegations.
“The article struck me at the time as largely a compilation of prior reporting. I was obviously referring to the reporting, not the allegations of any victims,” Ruemmler said. “I have deep sympathy for anyone victimized by Epstein, and as I have said many times, I regret ever knowing him.”
In 2019, as major outlets reexamined Epstein’s long history of sexually abusing minors, he invoked her advice directly. In a text message from that year, Epstein said Ruemmler helped him craft a public-relations statement in response to a forthcoming Washington Post editorial calling for Congress to investigate him.
At 4 a.m. on March 7, 2019, Epstein texted a draft statement to a contact redacted by House investigators, calling it a “Ruemmler proposal” and writing, “this is what Kathy suggests we tell Waco,” correcting the typo seconds later to “Wapo.” The statement — which Epstein said Ruemmler provided — rejected claims he received a “sweetheart deal” in his 2008 conviction and argued prosecutors had pursued him too aggressively.
“The criticism is wrong and reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both [the] facts underlying Mr. Epstein’s case and how it was prosecuted by both local and federal authorities. Far from a receiving a sweetheart deal, Mr. Epstein was subjected to a lengthy, aggressive, and highly unusual federal investigation for what were, in essence, local offenses of sexual solicitation. He accepted responsibility, served time and prison, and paid significant monetary settlements to the victims involved,” said the statement.
An editorial from the Washington Post’s editorial board later that day read, “How did Jeffrey Epstein get away with it? Congress should inquire,” but included no statement from Epstein.
The Epstein estate’s privilege log shows that Ruemmler emailed Epstein about the Washington Post editorial the day it was published in March 2019.
Another exchange from a few months earlier in December 2018 suggests that Ruemmler may also have been involved in discussions about how to respond to a Miami Herald 2018 investigation into Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. In a series of messages with journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein refers to someone named “Kathy” while weighing whether to push back on the reporting.
“Kathy thought the piece is being lauded as great investigative journalism so does your suggested PR group have the better contacts to place a story on why it is not,” Epstein wrote. Wolff appeared to invoke Ruemmler as well, replying that any response “has to be war gamed out,” adding, “Obviously I can contribute, Kathy can.”
As the fallout from the Epstein files continues, many of those revealed to be his close associates in his web of power are facing blowback. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, was stripped of his royal titles. Former Treasury secretary and Harvard University president Larry Summers stepped aside from teaching and was banned for life from a prestigious economic association.
But Ruemmler has managed to fly under the radar despite working as the top lawyer for one of the world’s largest banks, where she made $22.5 million last year.
Goldman Sachs has stood by Ruemmler, with their CEO David Solomon telling CNBC in mid-November that Ruemmler is “an excellent lawyer, and the organization relies on her guidance every single day.” The bank has said her relationship with Epstein was purely professional.
“As we’ve said before, and has been repeatedly reported, Ms. Ruemmler had a professional relationship with Mr. Epstein when she was at Latham & Watkins,” the company told the Washington Post.
In a statement to CNN, Goldman Sachs said, “Epstein referred business to Kathy, including a European bank he advised that became a client at Latham & Watkins. This naturally involved meetings and gatherings, including with other prospective clients, as occurred with other business associates.”
A trusted confidant
Ruemmler, 54, has enjoyed a sterling legal career. After graduating from Georgetown Law and serving as an associate counsel to President Bill Clinton, she cut her teeth as a young federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office in DC. She joined the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force, which successfully prosecuted top executives of the energy trading company for fraud.
Kathy Ruemmler, Former White House Counsel, appears on “Meet the Press” in Washington, DC, on June 29, 2014. William B. Plowman/NBC/Getty Images
She then worked in private practice before joining the Obama administration as White House counsel. Ruemmler emerged as one of Obama’s legal defenders of his signature policy, the Affordable Care Act.
After leaving the White House in mid-2014, Ruemmler returned to private practice at Latham & Watkins. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 where she is now the co-vice chair of the firm’s reputational risk committee – which determines which clients the bank should and shouldn’t work with.
A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said she met Epstein through her work in private practice at Latham & Watkins. The law firm said Epstein was never a client.
Epstein appears to have trusted Ruemmler so much that he relied on her as a character witness.
In 2017, Epstein invoked Ruemmler in his efforts to connect with tech billionaire Bill Gates, whose then-wife, Melinda Gates, wouldn’t allow it given Epstein’s reputation as a convicted sex offender.
“He wants to talk to you but his wife won’t let him,” read a text message to Epstein from a redacted user in late January 2017.
Epstein then suggested Melinda connect with Ruemmler to assuage her.
“Bill met my friend Kathy ruemmler, Obama counsel for 5 yrs. She would love to sit with Melinda and give her the other side of jeffrey,” Epstein wrote, adding, “she is an arch feminist who is my great defender.”