Catching Up On Kathryn Ruemmler

Epstein's relationship with Kathryn Ruemmler, a former close confidante of Barack Obama as White House counsel and subsequently chief counsel at Goldman Sachs, came to light only in the last tranche of Epstein files released by the Justice Department in January. Referring to sources behind paywalls, Chrome AI Mode says "Ruemmler and Epstein reportedly swapped approximately 11,300 emails between 2014 and 2019, with The Economist reporting they exchanged direct messages on roughly 70% of days during that period."

Once the extent of this relationship became known, she almost immediately resigned as chief counsel at Goldman Sachs, although this is not to take effect until June (given the way these deals work, she may well have already cleaned out her office). This make her the eighth propminent woman to have had such a complex, ambiguous relationship with Epstein, It's likely that they were lovers, while Ruemmler's connections with the Obama administration, the white-shoe law firm Latham & Watkins, and the investment bank Goldman Sachs would have been a key source of insider information for Epstein. According to Wikipedia,

After departing her White House counsel position and while once again employed as a partner at Latham & Watkins, Ruemmler was a close associate of and met with Jeffrey Epstein on dozens of occasions between July 2014 and May 2019 according to his schedule[32], well after he had been convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. These meetings included "lunches and dinners with celebrities, apartment hunting, and personal beauty appointments." She was on his schedule for a flight to Paris in 2015 as well as a stop at his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017 but denied that these trips happened, and The Wall Street Journal could not confirm whether they did. She said in 2023: "I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein."

Don't we all have things we regret? However, the relationship with Epstein lasted until the evening after his arrest. According to CNBC,

Her announcement that she will leave Goldman comes nearly a week after The Wall Street Journal reported that Ruemmler was one of three people whom Epstein called on July 6, 2019, after being arrested by federal authorities on child sex trafficking charges at an airport in New Jersey.

But Ruemmler doesn't otherwise fit the pattern of other Epstein women, all of whom began their relationships with him in the 1990s, and all of whom except Ghislaine Maxwell were in their early 20s at the time (Maxwell was about 30). By the time Ruemmler met him, she was 53, already a partner at Latham & Watkins, and already with White House jobs in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. Yet according to Wikipedia, Epstein was able to groom her like any old sugar daddy, and she fell for him like a schoolgirl. At the Wikipedia link:

Ruemmler called Epstein "wonderful Jeffrey," "sweetie," and "Uncle Jeffrey," and wrote "I adore him" in a December 2015 email exchange which appears to show Epstein booking and paying for a first-class trip to Europe. In other back-and-forth messages with Epstein, Ruemmler expressed gratitude for her "friendship" with Epstein as well as concluding her messages with "xo" and "xoxo." Other emails show her asking Epstein to help her land a job with Facebook and giving him advice as to how to respond to the coverage that his crimes were receiving in media.

At the CNBC link,

Other news articles detailed emails and documents showing how Epstein had made gifts to Ruemmler that included a Hermes bag, and other luxury items, such as a Fendi purse, spa visits, Bergdorf Goodman gift cards and flowers. On one occasion, she effusively thanked him, calling him “Uncle Jeffrey,” one email showed.

What interests me is that some people were able to meet Epstein and immediately sense something evil about him, while others, like Ruemmler, were drawn to him. Chrome AI Mode gave me a list of people who saw him the other way:

Melinda French Gates: After a single meeting with Epstein, she said she regretted it "from the second I stepped in the door". She described him as "abhorrent" and "evil personified," and later had nightmares about the encounter.

Maria Farmer: Farmer realized something was wrong when Epstein stole nude photos of her younger sisters and threatened her. She attempted to report him to the FBI as early as 1996.

Leon Botstein: The President of Bard College, has since referred to Epstein as a "truly evil man".

Donald Trump: According to a 2019 FBI interview with a former Palm Beach police chief, Trump claimed in 2006 that he "got the hell out of there" after being around Epstein when teenagers were present and subsequently "threw Epstein out of his club".

On the other hand, there are odd similarities between Ruemmler's relationship with Epstein and Larry Summers's. Both were listed as "backup executors" in Epstein's will. Both had long and wide-ranging e-mail correspondence. According to the Harvard Crimson:

Across years of messages, the two men arranged introductions, exchanged gossip about global politics, and referenced Harvard-linked projects that blurred the boundary between Cambridge and Epstein’s private world.

Ruemmler somehow thought she should rely on Epstein for career advice, when Epstein had no law degree, no four-year degree, and no law experience. Summers relied on Epstein as his "wing man" in arranging adulterous trysts, although he probably did have experience in that area.

Sometimes people need to trust their better instincts.