Kathryn Ruemmler, the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs, came under a microscope last month after a cache of emails showed a deeper relationship between her and the now-dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein than previously known.
Those emails aren’t the entirety of the communications between her and Epstein.
Epstein’s estate is keeping secret 277 additional emails between him and Ruemmler, saying they are protected by attorney-client confidentiality. Many of those emails contain discussions of lawsuits by women who accused Epstein of sexual assault, according to a court filing made public this week.
The document, a 500-page list of emails the estate claims are privileged, indicates that Ruemmler gave Epstein legal advice or otherwise acted as his attorney.
At the time, Ruemmler was a co-chair of the white-collar defense and investigations practice at the Big Law firm Latham & Watkins, which previously said Epstein wasn’t a client of the firm. Ruemmler hasn’t publicly said whether she worked as an attorney for Epstein in an individual capacity.
Ruemmler — who now serves as Goldman Sachs’ chief legal officer and general counsel — previously said she regrets her association with Epstein. A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs said Ruemmler and Epstein had a “professional relationship.”
Ruemmler, through a Goldman Sachs spokesperson, declined to comment for this story.
A battle between Epstein victims and his estate executors
The emails between Epstein and Ruemmler listed in the court document, known as a privilege log, span from October 2014 until June 2019, shortly before Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges. They are distinct from the emails made public in November by the House Oversight Committee, which were obtained from the Epstein estate through a congressional subpoena.
The emails released in November show Ruemmler seeking career and real estate advice from Epstein, Epstein introducing her to his world of powerful contacts, and the two griping about Donald Trump’s first term.
Before joining Goldman Sachs, Ruemmler was considered a legal star within the Democratic Party. She served as the top White House lawyer during President Barack Obama’s administration and was considered a possible pick for Supreme Court justice or US attorney general.
A number of the emails released by the House committee — as well as those listed in the privilege log — show that Ruemmler was looped into email discussions with other attorneys whom Epstein had personally hired, including Darren Indyke, Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr, Martin Weinberg, and Roy Black. A small handful of Ruemmler’s emails to Epstein in the Oversight committee’s tranche were also redacted for what was described as “privilege.”
Epstein — a financier who counted ex-Apollo CEO Leon Black, ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley, Prince Andrew, Trump, and Bill Clinton among his acquaintances — killed himself in jail in August of 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges related to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution as part of what was a widely criticized deal with Florida prosecutors.
The privilege log was filed in a case brought by several Epstein accusers against his estate’s executors, Indyke and Richard Kahn, alleging they facilitated Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation while respectively serving as his longtime personal lawyer and accountant. Indyke and Kahn have denied wrongdoing. Daniel Weiner, an attorney representing Indyke and Kahn, declined to comment on the privilege log but said the accusations against his clients are meritless.
“Messrs. Indyke and Kahn reject as categorially false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in the sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of that abuse during the time they provided professional services to Mr. Epstein,” Weiner told Business Insider.
The 513-page document was initially filed to the court docket in September, under seal. Public versions of it, with redactions for victim information, were filed on Monday and Tuesday,
The log offers brief descriptions of each email for which the Epstein estate executors are asserting attorney-client confidentiality — arguing it shouldn’t have to turn the emails over to opposing lawyers — without disclosing each message’s contents.
Sigrid McCawley, an attorney representing the Epstein accusers in the lawsuit, said the estate ought to disclose many of the emails. She declined to comment on Ruemmler’s presence in the log.
“Years after Epstein’s death when his privilege protection should no longer matter, Epstein’s executors Indyke and Kahn are making overbroad privilege assertions and refusing to produce critical information that would uncover the inner workings of his decades-long sex trafficking operation,” McCawley told Business Insider.
Epstein named Ruemmler as a backup executor to his estate in a January 2019 draft of his will, according to a copy released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this year. The final edition of the will, completed shortly before his death, replaced her with Boris Nikolic, a former Bill Gates advisor. Indyke and Kahn, Epstein’s first choice, ultimately became co-executors of the estate.
The privilege log’s descriptions of the emails indicate that Ruemmler worked on a range of Epstein’s legal problems, including numerous civil lawsuits from women who accused him of sexual abuse, as well as responding to “criminal complaints against Epstein.” None of the emails are described as “estate planning” — a designation used in the log for some of the emails between Epstein and Indyke.
“Attorney client communication regarding strategy of defense of legal claims against Jeffrey Epstein,” reads the description for one April 2019 email.
According to the document, Ruemmler and Epstein also communicated about a lawsuit from accusers that sought to undo his Florida plea deal, and about a long-running lawsuit that accuser Virginia Giuffre filed against his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of trafficking girls to Epstein and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year.)
Other descriptions for the emails are more vague. One, from October 2014, is described as “Attorney client communication providing information at legal request regarding sexual assault claims against Jeffrey Epstein.”
The email has the subject line “CONFIDENTIAL – JE.”
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