Kathryn Ruemmler, a former high lawyer at Goldman Sachs and White Home counsel below former President Barack Obama, admitted to Home lawmakers that she joked with Jeffrey Epstein about his conviction of soliciting a minor for prostitution in a 2016 e mail trade.
Ruemmler, who resigned from Goldman Sachs earlier this yr after her in depth communications with the infamous intercourse fiend had been launched by the Justice Division, instructed the Home Oversight Committee the joke – “Finest therapeutic massage ever, however not your form of therapeutic massage” – was made in “terribly poor style,” in line with a transcript of her July 15 testimony launched Wednesday.
“I definitely knew that he had pled responsible to 2 prostitution-related offenses and that these — that these concerned — that conduct concerned sexualized massages,” Ruemmler acknowledged throughout her grilling earlier than the committee.
“So what I used to be making right here was an offhanded joke that, definitely sitting right here in 2026, is in terribly poor style, nevertheless it was a joke about his prior prison historical past,” she continued.
Ruemmler, 55, defined that the “finest therapeutic massage ever” occurred at The Peninsula in New York, after Epstein gifted her “a half spa day” on the five-star luxurious resort in Manhattan.
“I imagine I went on a Saturday morning. And so I wrote again and mentioned, you understand, ‘Finest therapeutic massage ever,’ that means I had a really good therapeutic massage on the spa. And I mentioned ‘however not your form of a therapeutic massage.’ Sure. That was a joke to him about the truth that he had engaged within the crime of prostitution the place the act, once more, as I understood it, was that he had paid girls to provide him sexualized massages,” Ruemmler testified.
Epstein’s one-word response to the previous Obama lawyer’s “joke” was: “Disgrace.”
“I want I by no means handled the man,” Ruemmler continued. “ It was a mistake to cope with him. I want I — definitely want I’d by no means emailed with him.
“And sitting right here, you understand, 10 years later, in gentle of every little thing we all know now, this can be a joke the place I’m – I’m utilizing humor to principally, once more, form of name him out on the truth that he had this conviction. And it’s in poor style.”
The spa day was certainly one of a number of lavish presents Ruemmler – who claims she was by no means paid by Epstein – acknowledged accepting from the convicted intercourse prison.
Ruemmler testified that she additionally acquired present playing cards to high-end shops, together with Bergdorf Goodman, a Fendi coat and bag, a Hermes bag and an Apple Watch with a Hermes band.
“With respect to presents, I didn’t ask for them, I didn’t want them, and I didn’t view them as notably private or consequential,” she instructed lawmakers. “I accepted them graciously, as I noticed no cause to not, however the presents weren’t vital to me, and I declined to simply accept a few of them. In any occasion, nothing he gave me triggered me to cope with him any in a different way than I in any other case would have.”
Ruemmler, who handled Epstein by certainly one of her non-public observe authorized shoppers after leaving the White Home, was additionally requested about why she referred to the disgraced financier as “sweetie,” “older brother” and “Uncle Jeffrey” in a number of emails.
The lawyer denied ever having a romantic relationship with Epstein and, once more, claimed she was joking with him.
“So Mr. Epstein was — as I mentioned a couple of minutes in the past, he was extraordinarily smug. He was a mansplainer. He was pushy. He was avuncular. And as a joke and, frankly, to poke enjoyable of these qualities …. I feel it was in response to, you understand, once more, one thing that he had despatched me, you understand, as a present — that I, form of, in a teasing method, referred to him, you understand, as ‘Uncle Jeffrey,’” Ruemmler instructed the committee.
Ruemmler claimed she referred to Epstein as “sweetie” in a “patronizing method” after he steered his prison conduct was not as unhealthy as disgraced Hollywood director and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein
“My tone was, ‘sweetie,’ like I used to be patting him on the top. ‘Hey, sweetie, your conduct concerned abuse of energy too.’ So it was removed from a sign of affection,” she testified.
Ruemmler mentioned she stopped speaking with Epstein after he was charged with intercourse trafficking in July 2019. Epstein hung himself in his Manhattan jail cell later that yr whereas awaiting trial, in line with authorities.
“All of those occasions – the arrest, the indictment, the suicide — had been all fairly surprising to me,” she instructed the panel. “And, once more, that is somebody who I knew and I had handled, and so it was fairly surreal.”
She later added, “The concept that the Bureau of Prisons, you understand, may have been so negligent in a core responsibility to have allowed him to commit suicide was surprising and appalling to me.”
