Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler sought Jeffrey Epstein’s help to secure a top job at Facebook just months before the sex offender’s arrest, and advised him on how to respond to press coverage of his crimes.
Epstein gave extensive coaching to Ruemmler as she sought a senior role at Facebook between June 2018 and April 2019, new documents disclosed by the US Department of Justice show.
The disgraced financier drafted communications with then-chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg for Ruemmler, recommended the level of pay she should seek and lobbied Sandberg’s mentor Lawrence Summers on her behalf.
Ruemmler and Epstein appear to have exchanged thousands of messages between 2014 and July 2019. Epstein pleaded guilty to a charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, and was rearrested and indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. He died in a Manhattan jail in August 2019.
She joined Goldman in 2020 and previously worked as White House counsel in the Obama administration. At the time of the communications with Epstein, Ruemmler was a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins.
The messages also show Ruemmler forwarded emails to Epstein about a romantic relationship she appears to have had with a married associate of his. Epstein reassured her she “did nothing wrong”.
Their communications raise questions about the bank’s original characterisation of Ruemmler’s ties to the disgraced financier as a “professional” one as part of her job at Latham, which included business development.
The continued revelations about the nature of her relationship with the disgraced financier have attracted scrutiny inside Goldman over her judgment given her role as one of the bank’s key gatekeepers. She is head legal strategist as well as having senior roles on Goldman’s reputational risk and conduct committees.
In a statement to the FT, Ruemmler said: “I was a defence attorney when I dealt with Jeffrey Epstein. I got to know him as a lawyer and that was the foundation of my relationship with him.
“I had no knowledge of any ongoing criminal conduct on his part, and I did not know him as the monster he has been revealed to be.
“These decade-old private emails you are selectively referencing and pruriently reporting on have nothing to do with my work at Goldman Sachs.” She has also previously said she “regrets” ever knowing Epstein.
Ruemmler’s name appears thousands of times in the Epstein files released by the US justice department, though some documents appear multiple times — including meeting appointments, requests for phone calls and email exchanges.
Not all the contents of the messages sent between Ruemmler and Epstein have been made available. A separate court filing, previously reported by CNN, details hundreds of Epstein emails to, from or copying Ruemmler that have been withheld on the basis of attorney-client privilege.
Goldman spokesman Tony Fratto said Ruemmler was not involved in the decision to withhold documents and that it was at the behest of the Epstein estate.
Ruemmler was a co-chair of Latham’s white-collar defence group. The firm said on Monday that Epstein was not a client. A spokesperson declined to comment on whether its lawyers are permitted to provide legal advice outside of their role at the firm.
Laced throughout Ruemmler’s interactions with Epstein are lavish gifts, including a Hermès bag, Apple products, spa appointments, haircuts and plane tickets. “Am totally tricked out by Uncle Jeffrey today! Jeffrey boots, handbag, and watch!” she wrote in one email in January 2019.
Goldman’s Fratto said: “As is common in professional services businesses, Epstein routinely gave unsolicited gifts and services to his many business acquaintances.”
The DoJ files show Ruemmler giving Epstein advice on how to respond to a request for comment “from wapo”, typically used as shorthand for the Washington Post, about alleged special legal treatment Epstein received in the past.
Ruemmler drafted a detailed reply that she proposed Epstein send back, which denied that he was subject to any sweetheart legal deal and that he had “accepted responsibility, served time and prison, and paid significant monetary settlements to the victims involved”.
That email was sent while Ruemmler was in the thick of negotiations about a role at Facebook that she had involved Epstein in from the start, as well as another role at Google.
When Facebook first approached Ruemmler in 2018, she told Epstein about it within a day, according to the newly released documents. She subsequently held talks and negotiated with Facebook for almost a year, with Epstein offering advice in the background.
“I suggest you prep for your meeting as a case. Read up mark, sheryl, prepare an opening and summary. Along with a case strategy. III help,” he wrote to her, days after the initial approach.
The emails also show Epstein lobbying Summers, who was close to Sandberg, at the time Facebook’s chief operating officer. “your friend sheryl could use ruemmlers help,” Epstein wrote to Summers in January 2019. Weeks later he wrote to Summers again, saying: “sheryl needs ruemmler.”
“Kathy never asked Epstein to advocate on her behalf to Larry Summers,” said Fratto.
Parallel to the Facebook talks, Epstein and Ruemmler also discussed concurrent job negotiations with Google parent company Alphabet as well as her eventual role at Goldman. By April 1, the talks with Facebook had fizzled.
Days later, Goldman president John Waldron wrote to Ruemmler that “selfishly I am rooting for you to say no to the other opportunity so we have time to design something compelling for you. We would benefit enormously from having you at Goldman Sachs.”
Waldron later said the bank was “unified in wanting to make something work in short order” and that John Rogers, one of the most influential figures behind the scenes at Goldman, would be in touch.
She joined Goldman in 2020 as global head of regulatory affairs and was promoted to general counsel the following year.
The exchange shows the depth of support that Ruemmler enjoys at the top of the bank, where she is one of the most senior women at an institution with a chequered record of retaining top female talent.
She has continued to enjoy the support of Goldman’s top executives, even as new revelations have emerged about her close ties to Epstein.
Goldman chief executive David Solomon told CNBC in December that Ruemmler was “an excellent lawyer and the organisation relies on her guidance every single day”.
Ruemmler was paid $22.5mn for her work at Goldman in 2024. In a regulatory filing last month, she disclosed that she had sold about one-third of her Goldman shares worth almost $9mn.
She appears to have refrained from openly raising the controversy with her peers. At the bank’s weekly meeting of its management committee, on which Ruemmler sits, she has not addressed her ties with Epstein, according to people familiar with the matter.
Fratto said Ruemmler had “discussed the items in the news with her team and with countless colleagues. Management committee is not the forum.”