Former Obama White House counsel to face House questioning over Epstein ties

Lawmakers dubious of answers from Kathryn Ruemmler, whose name appeared thousands of times in released files

Democrats said Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under Barack Obama, was not “completely truthful” with lawmakers during her Wednesday testimony before the House committee on oversight and reform about her ties to Jeffrey Epstein .

Ruemmler, who testified as part of the panel’s investigation into the convicted sex offender, said in her opening remarks that Epstein “used” her “to legitimize his standing” and that “it was a mistake to deal with” him. She insisted she never witnessed criminal activity.

Democrats emerged from the first several hours of questioning saying Ruemmler was not forthcoming about her ties to Epstein.

“It is difficult to see how she’s being completely truthful in there with the answers she’s given the committee,” Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, told reporters.

Ruemmler came under scrutiny earlier this year after her name appeared thousands of times in records related to Epstein that were released by the justice department under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

She announced in February she would be resigning from her role at Goldman Sachs as chief legal officer effective on 30 June.

Emails between Ruemmler and Epstein, exchanged between 2014 and 2019 – years after Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state prostitution charges, including procuring a minor – showed that Ruemmler accepted luxury gifts from Epstein , addressed him as “Uncle Jeffrey ” and “sweetie ”, and advised him on how to respond to questions about his sex crimes. A document showed she was at one point listed as a backup executor of his will, according to the Wall Street Journal .

In one 2015 email, Ruemmler wrote to Epstein: “friendships goes two ways -- getti=g you some peace with respect to all of this legal shit is important to me.”

“For her to deny that there was any type of real relationship there … I just don’t buy it,” Garcia said Wednesday. “And so, again, the fact she is not under oath is very problematic.”

House oversight chair James Comer told reporters on Wednesday that the “most concerning” part of Ruemmler’s communications with Epstein is how she “tried to rehabilitate his image after he was convicted of solicitation of a minor”.

Wednesday’s interview was conducted behind closed doors, with the committee expected to release a transcript at a later date, as it has for previous witnesses.

In a statement to the Guardian this week, ahead of her testimony, a spokesperson for Ruemmler said that Ruemmler “welcomes the opportunity to appear before the committee”.

“At the time she interacted with Jeffrey Epstein , she was a practicing criminal defense attorney and shared a client with him,” the spokesperson said. “She has done nothing wrong and had no knowledge of any ongoing criminal activity on his part.”

According a copy her prepared opening statement she delivered to the committee on Wednesday, Ruemmler insisted that she never saw any “evidence of ongoing criminal conduct or misconduct of any kind by Epstein during the time I dealt with him”, and said that if she had seen or heard “any evidence suggesting that he was abusing women or girls, I would have immediately reported him to law enforcement”.

Ruemmler told lawmakers that she first met Epstein in 2014, when she was “restarting my legal practice after having served for several years in government”. She said Epstein cold-called her, and told her he was working with Bill Gates “to set up a large donor-advised fund” and that they were looking for someone to help with the legal issues involved. She said that the fund “ultimately did not materialize”, but that several weeks later, Epstein referred her another “important client” which she retained and represented until 2020.

Ruemmler said that Epstein referred clients to her, and that, even though she wasn’t his lawyer, Epstein sought her advice from time to time. She said that she was “friendly” with Epstein “in that context” and dealt with him “in my ordinary course – casually, informally, and sometimes irreverently”.

“If I knew then what I know now about who Epstein really was, I never would have accepted an initial meeting with him,” she said.

Ruemmler said that “many” of her emails with Epstein have been “taken out of context or do not mean what some have speculated or suggested”. She added that she accepted some gifts from him, as she “saw no reason not to”.

In her opening remarks, Ruemmler also said that shortly after first meeting Epstein, she came to understand “that he had pleaded guilty six years earlier to two prostitution-related offenses, including solicitation of a minor for prostitution, and had received a non-prosecution agreement from the Department of Justice”.

She said Epstein had told her he had “not known that any of them were underage” and that he “expressed remorse, embarrassment, and regret for his conduct, which he described as paying money for sex to women he believed to be over the age of 18”.

Ruemmler said her communications with Epstein ended in July 2019, after he was charged in federal court with the sex trafficking of minors. She said that she was “shocked” by the indictment.

Ruemmler concluded her remarks by describing Epstein as a “masterful liar” and saying: “He clearly lied to me.

“I can see now that he used me and other respectable people to legitimize his standing, and I know now that he often exaggerated his relationship with me to others.

“I understand how frustrating and hurtful it must have been for anyone victimized by Epstein to see him going about his life without facing the type of accountability and consequences that he deserved. I am angry that he hurt so many people, and I regret ever having anything to do with him.”

Despite announcing her resignation from her role as chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs in February, The Financial Times , Bloomberg and others reported in June that Ruemmler agreed to continue at Goldman Sachs in an advisory role, after CEO David Solomon asked her to remain at the bank as an adviser.

Goldman’s decision was criticized by some lawmakers, including two Democratic lawmakers, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who sent a letter to Solomon in June requesting information about the decision, and asked the bank to respond to a series of questions, including about what Ruemmler had disclosed about her relationship with Epstein before joining the firm.

The lawmakers said in their letter that the documents released by the justice department “suggested that Ruemmler maintained a far more extensive relationship with Epstein than she previously publicly acknowledged”.