Prime Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler mentioned Thursday night time that she’s going to go away the funding financial institution on the finish of June, a call that got here after a flurry of reports articles highlighting paperwork detailing the previous White Home counsel’s usually chummy e mail conversations with the infamous intercourse predator Jeffrey Epstein.
Goldman, for months, has defended Ruemmler after Congress after which the Division of Justice launched emails between her and Epstein, in addition to different paperwork associated to investigations of him.
Ruemmler, who has been a key advisor to Goldman CEO David Solomon since becoming a member of the financial institution in 2020, informed the Monetary Instances on Thursday, “I made the willpower that the media consideration on me, regarding my prior work as a defence legal professional, was changing into a distraction.”
The FT first reported the 54-year-old’s resolution to go away Goldman, the place she has been normal counsel and chief authorized officer, firstly of the summer time.
Solomon, in an interview on Friday with CNBC’s “Squawk Field,” referred to as Ruemmler “an amazing human being.”
“She referred to as me yesterday afternoon and informed me that … the press protection of the work that she had performed beforehand and of this entire state of affairs had simply gotten to a degree of noise and distraction that she thought was distracting the agency,” Solomon mentioned. “It was placing her ready the place it was laborious for her to execute on her job and her obligations, and he or she simply thought it was time to step away.”
Ruemmler, in an announcement Thursday night time to CNBC, mentioned, “Since I joined Goldman Sachs six years in the past, it has been my privilege to assist oversee the agency’s authorized, reputational, and regulatory issues; to boost our robust danger administration processes; and to make sure that we reside by our core worth of integrity in every little thing we do.”
“My accountability is to place Goldman Sachs’ pursuits first,” Ruemmler mentioned.
“Earlier at this time, I regretfully knowledgeable David Solomon of my intention to step down as Chief Authorized Officer and Common Counsel of Goldman Sachs as of June 30, 2026.”
Solomon, in an announcement Thusday, mentioned, “All through her tenure, Kathy has been a rare normal counsel, and we’re grateful for her contributions and sound recommendation on a variety of consequential authorized issues for the agency.”
“As probably the most achieved professionals in her area, Kathy has additionally been a mentor and pal to lots of our folks, and he or she might be missed. I accepted her resignation, and I respect her resolution,” Solomon mentioned.
Her announcement that she’s going to go away Goldman comes practically per week after The Wall Avenue Journal reported that Ruemmler was considered one of three folks whom Epstein referred to as on July 6, 2019, after being arrested by federal authorities on baby intercourse trafficking expenses at an airport in New Jersey.
The Journal’s report cites a handwritten set of notes by regulation enforcement about feedback Epstein made inside an FBI automobile after his arrest.
These notes are amongst paperwork launched in late January by the Division of Justice, CNBC has confirmed.
Different information articles detailed emails and paperwork displaying how Epstein had made items to Ruemmler that included a Hermes bag, and different luxurious objects, akin to a Fendi purse, spa visits, Bergdorf Goodman reward playing cards and flowers. On one event, she effusively thanked him, calling him “Uncle Jeffrey,” one e mail confirmed.
Ruemmler was a white-collar legal protection lawyer on the agency Latham & Watkins in the course of the years she was talking with Epstein, whom she met in 2014.
An Aug. 14, 2014, e mail contained within the DOJ’s Epstein information exhibits how he requested her to signify his consumer, Financial institution Edmond de Rothschild.
“They’ve a justice division drawback … like each different swiss financial institution,” Epstein wrote her.
Ruemmler took the financial institution as a consumer for Latham.
Ruemmler has mentioned that she by no means represented Epstein, who killed himself in a New York federal jail weeks after his 2019 arrest.
Ruemmler’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Connelly, informed the Journal for its story final Friday, “These paperwork are per what Ms. Ruemmler has repeatedly mentioned: She knew Epstein when she was a legal protection legal professional and shared a consumer with him.”
“She was pleasant with him in that context. She had no information of any ongoing legal conduct on his half,” Connelly mentioned.
Ruemmler beforehand served as White Home counsel beneath former President Barack Obama.
She is the newest individual to lose a high-profile place due to her prior affiliation with Epstein.
On Sunday, Morgan Sweeney resigned as chief of employees to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying he took accountability for advising Starmer to nominate Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US. Starmer fired Mandelson from that submit in September over disclosures about his connection to Epstein.
Final week, Brad Karp, chairman of the foremost company regulation agency Paul Weiss, resigned from that submit after fallout over emails between him and Epstein. Karp is staying on the agency.
In response to the Epstein emails, a Paul Weiss spokesman beforehand mentioned, “Mr. Karp by no means witnessed or participated in any misconduct. Mr. Karp attended two group dinners in New York Metropolis and had a small variety of social interactions by e mail, all of which he regrets.”
Karp mentioned he was leaving the chairman’s submit due to the distraction of the information tales.
In November, after a congressional committee launched emails between Ruemmler and Epstein, Goldman Sachs spokesman Tony Fratto informed CNBC, “These emails have been personal correspondence effectively earlier than Kathy Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs.”
“Kathy is an distinctive normal counsel and we profit from her judgment every single day,” Fratto mentioned on the time.
Ruemmler has beforehand informed the Journal that she regrets ever figuring out Epstein.
Among the many new tranche of emails that the DOJ launched in late January is one which Ruemmler despatched Epstein in March 2019, 4 months earlier than his arrest.
In that e mail, she supplied recommendation on how to reply to criticism that he had beforehand obtained particular therapy and a lightweight punishment in 2008 due to his wealth and political connections when he prevented federal prosecution in trade for pleading responsible in Florida state courtroom to a cost of soliciting prostitution from an underage woman.
On the time Epstein sought Ruemmler’s recommendation, he had been the topic of a sequence of articles within the Miami Herald that have been important of the choice by federal prosecutors to not file expenses towards him in 2008. Epstein ended up serving simply 13 months in state jail in Florida, however was allowed out to go to his workplace in the course of the day for a lot of that point.
The topic line of the e-mail thread, “From wapo,” means that Epstein was reaching out to Ruemmler due to an inquiry by The Washington Put up about him.
Ruemmler wrote within the e mail: “One thing like: … ‘The criticism is unsuitable and displays a basic [misunderstanding] of each the information underlying Mr. Epstein’s case and the way it was [prosecuted] by each native and federal authorities.”
“Removed from [receiving] a sweetheart deal, Mr. Epstein was subjected to a prolonged, aggressive, [and] extremely uncommon federal investigation for what have been, in essence, native [offenses] of sexual solicitation,” Ruemmler wrote. “He accepted accountability, served [time and] jail, and paid vital financial settlements to the victims [involved].”
Ruemmler, in a bracketed part, additionally urged saying one thing like, “However for his wealth, it’s laborious to think about that Mr. Epstein … would have obtained the aggressive therapy that he did from [federal] prosecutors, and he definitely would by no means have been subjected to the [salacious] and malicious therapy by the media that he continues to obtain greater than 10 years after the case was resolved.”
