Goldman's Former Top Lawyer Says Epstein Duped Her

Goldman Sachs' former top lawyer says she now sees Jeffrey Epstein as something she missed: "a masterful liar" who used her to burnish his image. In closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Kathryn Ruemmler, White House counsel to Barack Obama, said that during the years she knew him, she believed his expressions of remorse over his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor, reports the New York Times. She acknowledged exchanging friendly, "irreverent" emails, accepting gifts, and advising him on how to address questions about his Florida plea deal, which she now calls "deeply flawed." "As we now know, his conduct was much worse and more sinister," she said.

Ruemmler told lawmakers Epstein leveraged "respectable people" to legitimize himself. She said her dealings with Epstein began in 2014, just after she left the Obama administration. She said she was shocked by his 2019 indictment on federal sex-trafficking charges. "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," she said.

• "If I knew then what I know now about who Epstein really was, I never would have accepted an initial meeting with him. It was a mistake to deal with him, and I regret it," Ruemmler said, according to prepared remarks seen by CNN. "But many people assume that given everything we know now about Epstein, everyone who dealt with him before his 2019 indictment must have known everything then. In my case, that assumption is completely wrong."
• "I can see now that he used me and other respectable people to legitimize his standing, and I know now that he often exaggerated his relationship with me to others," Ruemmler said.
• House Oversight Chair James Comer said Wednesday that the "most concerning" part of her communications with Epstein is how she "tried to rehabilitate his image after he was convicted of solicitation of a minor," the AP reports.

Ruemmler, who was paid $25 million last year, said she would step down from Goldman earlier this year after Justice Department emails detailed the closeness of their relationship, though she is still employed by the bank, the AP reports. The committee has also interviewed other high-profile Epstein associates, including Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and financier Leon Black. Comer said Ruemmler is the 18th witness interviewed in the Epstein probe. Black's hearing was cut short last month when he refused to answer questions about possible nondisclosure agreements with women, the Times reports. Comer then subpoenaed Black, who is expected to return for a sworn deposition in September.