Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathy Ruemmler to resign
Ken Sweet
Goldman Sachs general counsel Kathy Ruemmler has had a successful legal career. As a federal prosecutor, he helped successfully prosecute Enron executives including Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. He was part of President Barack Obama’s administration and served in a variety of roles throughout most of his two terms in office, including White House Counsel.
He was even briefly considered by President Obama as a candidate for attorney general.
Ruemmler, 54, announced plans to resign from his top legal post at Goldman, years after Epstein was convicted on sex crimes charges in 2008 and became a registered sex offender, after numerous emails and correspondence between him and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein showed the two men were particularly close.
Ruemmler has previously downplayed her relationship with Epstein. He called her a “monster” and said he regretted ever knowing her. Ruemmler repeatedly described their relationship as professional, citing his work as a private defense attorney before joining Goldman Sachs.
But documents released in recent weeks and reviewed by The Associated Press reveal a deeper relationship than Ruemmler and Goldman Sachs had previously described. These included intimate email exchanges, social plans, and gifts that went beyond formal legal work.
Approximately 8,400 documents contained or referred to Ruemmler. Some correspondence indicates that Ruemmler was aware of the extent of the allegations that Epstein faced involving underage girls in Florida. In some cases, he advised Epstein on how he could try to repair his image and defend himself publicly against new allegations of misconduct.
The gifts that Epstein gave Ruemmler were documented in the news: spa treatments, bags from Hermes, an Apple Watch, a Fendi coat and others. But some of the interactions between Epstein and Ruemmler described throughout the correspondence indicate that Epstein and Ruemmler did not have merely an attorney-client transactional relationship, as Ruemmler has previously confirmed.
“Seeing you happy makes him happy,” Epstein’s assistant wrote to Ruemmler in 2016, after Epstein prepaid for a spa treatment.
In October 2018, Epstein instructed one of his assistants to send flowers and chicken soup to Ruemmler because he was “not feeling well.” It wouldn’t be the first time Epstein sent her a small token of thanks when she got sick. They talked about dating issues, made jokes about rich and ordinary people alike, and shared laments about their careers and dating lives.
They texted each other about mundane things, like their mutual distaste for seeing babies in business class on flights, and repeatedly planned to have dinner or drinks at various places. At one point, Epstein even named Ruemmler as the backup executor of his will.
Putting aside the immense wealth and privilege and Epstein’s legal troubles, most of the emails between the two appeared no different than the banter many Americans would share in their own text messages, emails or group chats.
“Well, I adore him. It’s like he has another big brother!” he wrote in a 2015 email.
During her time in private practice after leaving the White House in 2014, Ruemmler received many expensive gifts from Epstein, including luxury handbags and a fur coat. The gifts were given after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes in 2008 and registered as a sex offender. Ruemmler also became involved in Epstein’s legal defense efforts after he was arrested a second time for sex crimes in 2019 and later killed himself in a Manhattan jail.
“So cute and thoughtful! Thank you Uncle Jeffrey!!!” Ruemmler wrote to Epstein in 2018.
He later joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 and became the investment bank’s top lawyer in 2021.
The firm’s leadership publicly supported him amid the revelations. But the embarrassing emails raised questions about Ruemmler’s decision. Historically, Wall Street has opposed gifts between clients and bankers or Wall Street lawyers, especially high-level gifts that could create a conflict of interest. Partly to avoid running afoul of anti-bribery laws, Goldman Sachs requires employees to get pre-approval before accepting or giving gifts to customers, according to the company’s code of conduct.
Bloomberg News, Wall StreetJournal and other media outlets reported that Goldman’s partners, the firm’s most senior and respected members dating back to when the investment bank was a private firm, began to question why the firm held Ruemmler in such high regard when other lawyers were equally qualified to take on top legal work.
“Since joining Goldman Sachs six years ago, it has been my privilege to help oversee the firm’s legal, reputational and regulatory matters, develop our robust risk management processes, and ensure that we live by our core value of integrity in everything we do. My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs’ interests first,” Ruemmler said in the statement.
Goldman CEO David Solomon respected Ruemmler’s decision to resign. The firm is not pushing Ruemmler out the door, saying he will quit his job at the bank “to ensure a smooth transition” before his last day on June 30.
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