Barack Obama’s one-time counsel shared “non-public” White House communication with Jeffrey Epstein about its response to a sex scandal, newly revealed emails show.
Kathryn Ruemmler, who referred to the sex trafficker as “Uncle Jeffrey,” forwarded him an email from a White House aide as well as her own draft of a response to an article that alleged White House personnel were probed during the Secret Service’s 2012 prostitution scandal.
Newly released files, first reported by Bloomberg, reveal that Ruemmler even received advice from Epstein as she weighed how to respond to new reporting on the high-profile scandal when new details emerged in the fall of 2014.
Epstein emailed Ruemmler, 54, asking if a staff member central to the controversy—a volunteer member of the White House’s advance team—still denied he stayed with a prostitute overnight in Cartagena, Colombia, something Epstein noted was an “important point.”
“Yes he does,” Ruemmler replied. “Making some more tweaks.”
Epstein then asked Ruemmler whether she had reviewed his “edits” on an email she planned to send to a reporter “on background.” Bloomberg notes that it is unclear whether Ruemmler accepted his advice or even sent the email.
However, she responded to Epstein, “Looking now.”
That exchange, from October 2014, occurred when Ruemmler was no longer part of the Obama administration but was under consideration to be Attorney General. She was still roped into the prostitution scandal—which saw eight federal agents fired for their involvement and others suspended—because it broke out when she was still leading the Office of White House Counsel.
With the story re-emerging with a focus on the White House’s internal probe, led by her office, she told Epstein on Oct. 9 that she was up late trying to “isolate/contain wapo,” referring to The Washington Post. The story alleging that a White House staffer was investigated in the scandal but was ultimately cleared was published the day prior.
Bloomberg reports that Ruemmler also forwarded Epstein an email she received from then-White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz. That email “contained a letter to the Washington Post reporter from an attorney representing the White House volunteer who’d been swept up in the prostitution scandal.”
Epstein then offered his own take—complete with typos, like many of his emails—on what may have occurred. He inquired if a prostitute, opposed to a hotel clerk, had written down the room number she was visiting.
“That’s a totally different spin=on the story, if t wasn’t the hotel clerk who wrote it, =e how often do prostitutes lie as to which room they are head=d??” Epstein asked.
Ruemmler responded, “We don’t know — could have been the prostitute, could h=ve been the hotel clerk,” Ruemmler replied.
Epstein answered, “Could have b=en the prostitute is pretty strong mitigation.”
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” Ruemmler wrote back.
A representative for Ruemmler did not respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment. In a statement to Bloomberg, her spokeswoman said she “has done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. Nothing in the record suggests otherwise.”
She continued, “Ms. Ruemmler has deep sympathy for those harmed by Epstein, and if she knew then what she knows now, she never would have dealt with him at all.”
Reporting on Ruemmler’s secret sharing comes on the same day the disgraced British royal once known as Prince Andrew was arrested for being similarly loose-lipped with Epstein.
There are no signs of legal trouble for Ruemmler, but she announced last week that she was stepping down as general counsel at Goldman Sachs because of her emails to Epstein. She has worked at the financial giant since 2020.
Ruemmler told the Financial Times of her decision, “I made the determination that the media attention on me, relating to my prior work as a defense attorney, was becoming a distraction.”
Goldman chief executive David Solomon, who has backed Ruemmler since her ties to Epstein first emerged, said in a statement to the Daily Beast that he respected her decision and that she “will be missed.”
He added, “Throughout her tenure, Kathy has been an extraordinary general counsel, and we are grateful for her contributions and sound advice on a wide range of consequential legal matters for the firm.”
Ruemmler first came under fire for her ties to Epstein in 2023, after the Wall Street Journal revealed that she regularly met with the disgraced financier even after his 2008 conviction for procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.
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