Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler sought Jeffrey Epstein’s help to get a top position at Facebook just months before the sex offender’s arrest, and advised him on how to respond to press coverage of his crimes.
Epstein provided extensive coaching to Ruemmler as he sought a prominent role at Facebook between June 2018 and April 2019, new documents disclosed by the US Department of Justice show.
He conducted communications with former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg for Ruemmler, recommended the salary level she would seek and lobbied Sandberg’s mentor Lawrence Summers on her behalf.
The DoJ documents also show that Ruemmler forwarded emails to Epstein about a romantic relationship he said he was having with his married partner, which Epstein assured him “didn’t do anything wrong”.
Ruemmler, a former White House adviser in the Obama administration, and Epstein apparently exchanged thousands of messages between 2014 and July 2019, the year before he joined Goldman.
Epstein pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, and was rearrested and charged with federal sex trafficking in 2019. He died in a Manhattan prison in August 2019.
The communications between Ruemmler and Epstein raised questions about the bank’s original nature of the relationship as “professional” and about its general counsel’s work at the law firm Latham & Watkins, where his responsibilities included business development.
Continued revelations about the nature of her relationship with Epstein have also drawn scrutiny within Goldman of her judgment given her role as one of the bank’s key gatekeepers. He is the chief legal strategist, as well as holding senior roles on Goldman’s reputational and conduct risk committees.
In a statement to the FT, Ruemmler said: “I was a defense lawyer when I dealt with Jeffrey Epstein. I knew him as a lawyer and that was the foundation of my relationship with him.”
He added: “I have no knowledge of any ongoing criminal conduct on his part, and I do not recognize him as the monster he has been revealed to be.
These decades-old private emails that you selectively refer to and carefully report have nothing to do with my work at Goldman Sachs.
She also previously said she “regrets” knowing Epstein.
Ruemmler’s name appears thousands of times in the Epstein files released by the US justice department, although some documents appear multiple times – including meeting appointments, requests for phone calls and email exchanges.
Not all of the contents of the messages sent between Ruemmler and Epstein have been made available. A separate court filing, previously reported by CNN, detailed hundreds of Epstein emails, from or copies of Ruemmler that were withheld based on the attorney-client privilege.
Latham said Epstein is not a client of the firm and declined to comment on whether its lawyers are allowed to provide legal advice outside of their role at the firm.
Ruemmler said in his statement that one of Epstein’s clients became a client of his, that they often worked together and that he asked him for advice “as many people do”.
He added: “Of course, I am friendly with him in that context – this is a professional business service – and I deal with him in the same open and informal way as I deal with most people.
Goldman spokesman Tony Fratto said Ruemmler was not involved in the decision to withhold the documents and that it was at the behest of the Epstein estate.
All of Ruemmler’s interactions with Epstein were lavish gifts, including an Hermès bag, Apple products, spa appointments, haircuts and plane tickets. “Uncle Jeffrey is completely tricked today! Jeffrey boots, handbags, and watches!” he wrote in an email in January 2019.
Goldman’s Fratto said: “As is common in professional services businesses, Epstein frequently provided unsolicited gifts and services to his numerous business acquaintances.”
DoJ files show Ruemmler gave Epstein advice on how to respond to a request for comment “from wapo”, commonly used as shorthand for the Washington Post, about alleged special legal treatment Epstein received in the past.
Ruemmler made a detailed response in which he proposed to send Epstein back, denying that he was subject to any legal lover’s agreement and that he “accepted responsibility, served time and prison, and paid large monetary settlements to the victims involved”.
That email was sent while Ruemmler was in the thick of negotiations about a role at Facebook that would involve Epstein from the start, as well as another role at Google.
When Facebook first approached Ruemmler in 2018, he told Epstein about it within a day, according to newly released documents. He held talks and negotiations on Facebook for almost a year, with Epstein offering background advice.
“I suggest that you prepare for your meeting as a case. Read the mark, sheryl, prepare an opening and summary. With a strategy of the case. III help,” he wrote to her, days after the first procedure.
The emails also show Epstein lobbying Summers, who was close to Sandberg, then 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 for Larry Summers,” Fratto said.
In the course of the Facebook talks, Epstein and Ruemmler also discussed the joint employment negotiations with Google parent company Alphabet as well as his final role at Goldman. By April 1, the Facebook talks had failed.
Days later, Goldman’s president John Waldron wrote to Ruemmler saying “selfishly I am asking for you to say no to another opportunity so that we have time to design something attractive for you. We will benefit greatly from having you at Goldman Sachs”.
Waldron later said that the bank “was united in wanting to do something that would work in short order” and that John Rogers, one of the most influential people behind the scenes at Goldman, would be contacted.
He joined Goldman in 2020 as global head of regulatory affairs and was promoted to general counsel the following year.
The exchange reflects the depth of support Ruemmler enjoys at the top of the bench, where she is one of the most senior women in an institution with checkered record of retaining top female talent.
He continues to enjoy the support of Goldman’s top executives, even as new revelations emerge about his close relationship with Epstein.
Goldman chief executive David Solomon told CNBC in December that Ruemmler “is an excellent lawyer and the organization relies on his guidance every day”.
Ruemmler was paid $22.5mn for his work at Goldman in 2024. In a regulatory filing last month, he disclosed that he had sold about a third of his Goldman shares worth nearly $9mn.
He appears to have refrained from openly raising controversy with his peers. At the bank’s weekly meeting of its management committee, where Ruemmler sat, he did not address his relationship with Epstein, according to people familiar with the matter.
Fratto said Ruemmler “discusses news matters with his team and countless colleagues. The management committee is not the forum”.