Who is Kathryn Ruemmler? Former Obama White House attorney interviewed about Epstein emails

Former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler defended her email exchanges with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a closed-door interview before the House Oversight Committee, according to a transcript released this week.

Ruemmler called Epstein, whom she first met in 2014, a "masterful liar" in her opening remarks to the panel, adding that she didn't see evidence of criminal conduct by Epstein.

She also stressed in the July interview that "if I had seen or heard any evidence suggesting that he was abusing women or girls, I would have immediately reported him to law enforcement."

Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under former President Barack Obama from 2011 to 2014, was the top lawyer for Goldman Sachs for about six years before resigning at the end of June over fallout from her Epstein ties. She remains employed by the investment bank in an advisory role.

Among the millions of Epstein-related documents the Department of Justice released earlier this year were emails that suggested a close relationship between Ruemmler and Epstein, including references to the disgraced financier as an "older brother" or "Uncle Jeffrey."

In her hourslong sit-down with the House panel, Ruemmler sought to distance herself from the emails, saying media attention around that correspondence had been taken out of context or "do not mean what some have speculated or suggested."

"With that said, given what I now know about him, I wish I never would have dealt with him at all, much less emailed with him," she added.

Ruemmler's voluntary interview on July 15 is part of the House Oversight Committee's ongoing investigation into the federal government's handling of cases involving Epstein and his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

A number of powerful figures from across the political spectrum and the worlds of finance, entertainment and beyond have been named in the Epstein documents released by the Justice Department. Inclusion in the files does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing, but the fallout has led to some high-profile resignations and calls for more accountability.

Other notable figures who have provided testimony include billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and philanthropist Bill Gates, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, two of Epstein's former assistants and a former prison guard who was working the night before the financier was found dead in his cell.

Why did the committee want to talk to Ruemmler?

Watch the clip in the player above.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said in a letter to Ruemmler in March that the House Oversight Committee believed she had information that would help them in its ongoing probe into Epstein's crimes.

Comer told reporters the morning of the interview that Ruemmler's long legal career included being considered — at one point — for attorney general under Obama. Within the "massive amount of communication" between Ruemmler and Epstein, Comer said the committee flagged an email where she sought advice from Epstein on how to pursue the Cabinet position.

What was most concerning after reviewing the pair's correspondence, Comer added, was how Ruemmler attempted to "rehabilitate" Epstein's image after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution with a minor in 2008.

The committee's goal for the interview was to understand how close Ruemmler was with Epstein, noting that she received tens of thousands of dollars' worth of gifts from him.

"Am totally tricked out by Uncle Jeffrey today! Jeffrey boots, handbag, and watch!" Ruemmler wrote in one email dated January 2019.

Ruemmler's name appears roughly 9,000 times in the millions of documents the Justice Department released over the course of several weeks this winter.

What has Ruemmler said about her connections to Epstein?

Days before her interview with the House committee, The New York Times published a column by lawyer and legal analyst Ankush Khardori who spoke with Ruemmler about her personal and professional associations with Epstein.

Ruemmler told Khardori she wouldn't have worked with Epstein if she had known the full nature of his crimes, though she acknowledged that she looked at some of the case details surrounding him. That included a 2008 letter from a former Justice Department prosecutor and a member of Epstein's legal team who said the evidence contradicted the allegations being made against him.

The documents released by the DOJ show numerous email exchanges between Ruemmler and Epstein from 2014 to 2019, when she worked at a big law firm after the White House and before joining Goldman Sachs. As scrutiny of her emails with Epstein heightened, Ruemmler said in a statement to Reuters in February of this year that she 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," she added.

Ruemmler told Khardori she maintained the yearslong relationship with Epstein because it gave her more business contacts and access to a vast social network.

"I would not have been very effective in my job if I took the position that I would not meet with people who had been convicted of crimes or accused of crimes," she said.

What did Ruemmler say in her closed-door interview?

Ruemmler said she had never heard of Epstein or knew anything about him when he cold-called her in 2014, shortly before she started working at Latham & Watkins.

Epstein wanted her to work through the legal issues for a new investment fund geared toward philanthropy with billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Though that particular opportunity fizzled out, Epstein later referred her to a client, for whom he was already a primary adviser. During her time in private practice, Ruemmler said Epstein connected her to three or four other clients.

Ruemmler said she wasn't Epstein's lawyer, though "he sought my advice from time to time, as many people do."

"I was friendly with him in that context, and I dealt with him in my ordinary course — casually, informally and sometimes irreverently," she said in her opening statement.

Ruemmler said her relationship with Epstein ended in 2019, when he was indicted in Manhattan federal court on sex-trafficking charges.

Ruemmler called Epstein a "very, kind of, persistent guy" who she tried to be responsive with, adding that email was her primary mode of communication with Epstein.

Investigators asked Ruemmler about several of her emails with Epstein, including one in which she referred to him as "older brother." When that Christmas Day 2015 email was sent to Epstein's executive assistant Lesley Groff, Ruemmler said she had wanted to show her appreciation for the financier referring her to a client he was advising. Epstein had requested that his assistant upgrade her flight to Geneva to visit the client, but told Groff that she could book the business trip herself.

"Well, I adore him. It's like having another older brother!" she wrote in the email.

READ MORE: Who is Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein's former assistant interviewed in House probe?

Regarding a separate email where Ruemmler called the financier "Uncle Jeffrey," she called Epstein a "mansplainer" who would constantly offer unsolicited advice. And as a way to jab at these qualities, she used the teasing term of endearment to "sort of call him out for the way that he could be quite patronizing," she said. "We all sometimes have relatives like that."

Ruemmler said the last time she communicated with Epstein was after he had been arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019. She recalled it being a short conversation, less than a minute long, and telling him that he needed to call his lawyer. She told investigators she did not offer legal advice at that moment.

READ MORE: A timeline of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and the fight to make the government's files public

She also attended Epstein's arraignment days later inside a Manhattan federal courthouse, saying she wanted to understand the charges he was facing.

"I was absolutely shocked that he had been arrested," she told investigators. "You could've knocked me over with a feather."

Epstein died by suicide in his New York jail cell weeks later.

Lawmakers repeatedly raised email after email where Ruemmler seemed to either have a friendly interaction with Epstein or maybe signaled that she knew more about the nature of his crimes.

In response to questioning from Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, Ruemmler stopped short of calling Epstein a friend, adding that "this effort or attempt to create a binary construct — you're either friends or you're professional — it's just not real life," suggesting that Menefee himself works with other members of Congress in a professional, but friendly, capacity too.

Menefee suggested that the pair's relationship may have been a "hybrid situation."

"I practiced at a large law firm too; I never called anybody 'darling' in a communication," he said.

Congress disclosed a document last year that showed Ruemmler being listed as a backup executor of Epstein's estate, according to a 2019 copy of his will. Ruemmler said she had no knowledge of this designation and was surprised when the document was released last year. She denied having any involvement with Epstein's estate. Ruemmler's name was later removed from the will.

Investigators asked Ruemmler whether she ever connected with Maxwell. Ruemmler said she met her once, when Maxwell's lawyer asked if they could use a conference room at her law firm since he didn't have an office in New York. She said yes, as a professional courtesy, and came by to say hello.

Ruemmler added that she was aware of the allegations against Maxwell at the time, but didn't know the full extent of her relationship with Epstein. Ruemmler also confirmed for investigators that Epstein did discuss these allegations against Maxwell with her, saying they were "unequivocally" untrue.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein's sex-trafficking network. Epstein's longtime associate was convicted in 2021 on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, among others.

Watch the segment in the player above.

Toward the end of the interview, investigators asked Ruemmler whether she believed that Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent accusers, was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell.

Ruemmler said she didn't know.

"If she says that she was, I don't have a reason to doubt that," Ruemmler added. "However, there were allegations that she made that were, I believed based on my experience as a former prosecutor and as a defense counsel, that were of such a nature that they were — they lacked inherent credibility."

Ruemmler continued: "Typically, when someone says, 'I was sex trafficked to someone,' they say who, when, where, not multiple world leaders, multiple foreign presidents."

Giuffre died by suicide last year. Her family decried Ruemmler's comments about Giuffre, saying it was Ruemmler who lacked credibility.

"To attempt to cast doubt on Virginia, whose bravery was the reason so many other survivors stepped forward, resulting in more than 50 people from having to step down from their positions of power, is reprehensible," the family said in a statement to CNN. "She should be ashamed of herself."