Kathy Ruemmler, who as soon as served as White Home counsel for President Barack Obama and later labored as the highest lawyer for funding financial institution Goldman Sachs, advised Home investigators Wednesday that she by no means noticed any proof of legal conduct in the course of the time she handled convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Ruemmler appeared Wednesday in a closed-door session with the Home Oversight Committee in its ongoing probe of the federal government’s dealing with of the investigations into Epstein.
She dismissed the lavish presents that Epstein gave her, evaluating them to the way in which businessmen go to Knicks video games or out for rounds of golf, in line with sources accustomed to her testimony.
Ruemmler by no means represented Epstein as an lawyer, although paperwork within the Epstein files urged she often offered authorized and public relations recommendation to him.
When Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, one of many first cellphone calls he made was to Ruemmler — however Ruemmler advised the committee that she reduce off all communication with Epstein after his arraignment and that she declined an invite to hitch his protection crew, sources mentioned.
“If I knew then what I do know now about who Epstein actually was, I by no means would have accepted an preliminary assembly with him. It was a mistake to cope with him, and I remorse it,” Ruemmler advised the committee, in line with a duplicate of her ready remarks reviewed by ABC Information.
Ruemmler mentioned she by no means noticed any “proof of ongoing legal conduct or misconduct of any form by Epstein” and would have reported him had she seen proof of abuse, per her remarks. When he was indicted in 2019, Ruemmler mentioned she was “shocked” by the allegations and reduce ties with Epstein.
Kathy Ruemmler, former chief authorized officer at Goldman Sachs, arrives for an interview earlier than the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee over her ties to convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 15, 2026.
Al Drago/Reuters
“I used to be shocked by the indictment, which alleged that Epstein had deliberately enticed and recruited minor ladies to have interaction in intercourse acts with him in alternate for money. These horrific allegations — which coated conduct that had occurred nearly 10 years earlier than I met Epstein — contradicted what I had understood concerning the nature and scope of that prior conduct,” she mentioned, in line with her ready assertion.
Whereas she mentioned she was conscious of Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea to prostitution-related fees, Ruemmler mentioned she trusted the plea deal was “a proportionate and remaining decision of his legal conduct. She added that the high-profile people who she thought had been related to Epstein urged he was not partaking in legal conduct, including that he appeared to have “regret, embarrassment, and remorse for his conduct.”
“Epstein was a masterful liar, and he clearly lied to me. I can see now that he used me and different respectable individuals to legitimize his standing, and I do know now that he typically exaggerated his relationship with me to others,” she mentioned, in line with her ready remarks. “I perceive how irritating and hurtful it will need to have been for anybody victimized by Epstein to see him going about his life with out dealing with the kind of accountability and penalties that he deserved. I’m offended that he harm so many individuals, and I remorse ever having something to do with him.”
Rating Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, chatting with reporters throughout a break within the proceedings, expressed doubt concerning the truthfulness of a few of Ruemmler’s solutions to the panel’s questions.
“I feel it’s troublesome to see how she’s being fully truthful in there with the solutions that she’s giving the committee,” Garcia mentioned, including that he felt she was “unwilling to take any accountability for her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
“Let’s do not forget that she continued to have a relationship. She was one of many final individuals he spoke to earlier than he handed, and through that interval of his life, she knew concerning the conviction, and but she continued to have — to work together, to be pleasant, to make jokes about massages that complete time,” Garcia mentioned. “For her to proceed to have interaction in these form of playful actions with Jeffrey Epstein, after which for her to disclaim after we can all learn the emails within the information about her making jokes about massaging … it simply, I do not purchase that, and I do not assume we purchase that.”
Ruemmler confronted renewed scrutiny over the connection after the Division of Justice’s release of Epstein files earlier this yr confirmed a trove of emails from 2014 to 2019 between her and Epstein.
Within the emails to Epstein — who she sometimes known as “Uncle Jeffrey” and in comparison with an “older brother” — Ruemmler thanked him for lavish presents, received recommendation about her profession, and lambasted attorneys representing Epstein’s victims.
“Sufferer’s rights, my ass,” Ruemmler wrote in a February 2015 e mail about a case associated to the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
Amid the renewed scrutiny, Ruemmler introduced plans earlier this yr to step down as Goldman Sachs’ chief authorized officer and normal counsel, and a spokesperson for the financial institution on the time mentioned she “regrets ever realizing” Epstein.
In March, the Home Oversight Committee despatched letters to a gaggle of people related to Epstein — together with Ruemmler, Microsoft founder Invoice Gates, billionaire Leon Black, and others — to request they take part in transcribed interviews as a part of their Epstein probe.
“Ms. Ruemmler welcomes the chance to seem earlier than the Committee,” Jennifer Connelly, a spokeswoman for Ruemmler, mentioned in an announcement following the request. “On the time she interacted with Jeffrey Epstein, she was a working towards legal protection lawyer and shared a shopper with him. She has completed nothing fallacious and had no data of any ongoing legal exercise on his half.”
Regardless of her preliminary plan to depart from Goldman Sachs by June, Ruemmler continues to advise the financial institution on its seek for a brand new normal counsel. Throughout an interview Monday on CNBC, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon mentioned he’s “actually happy” and “very grateful that she continues to assist the agency.”
“Kathy stepped away due to the noise,” he mentioned. “Kathy has agreed to behave as an adviser and assist us navigate by till a brand new normal counsel is seated. We’re operating a search. We’re deep into that search. We are going to seat a chief authorized officer sooner or later, you already know, within the close to time period. And as soon as that individual is seated, Kathy will transfer on and do different issues.”
