Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on Friday praised the bank’s outgoing top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, after she handed in her resignation amid intense media scrutiny of her ties with late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The 64-year-old Wall Street titan said Ruemmler, whose elite creds include former Obama White House general counsel, had been an “extraordinary general counsel” for the US financial giant and “tremendous human being.”
“I’m disappointed that it got to this,” Solomon told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “But I respect her decision, and we are moving on.”
Ruemmler will formally leave Goldman Sachs on June 30, according to a statement from her spokeswoman.
The Post sought further comment from her rep after Solomon’s media appearance.
The bank’s chief executive, who succeeded Lloyd Blankfein in 2018, said that Ruemmler called him on Thursday and told him she was stepping down after six years at Goldman due to the “noise and distraction” created by the release of the Epstein files — in which she surfaced as a strong ally of the creep’s even after his guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
“It was putting her in a position where it was hard for her to execute on her job and her responsibilities, and she just thought it was time to step away,” Solomon said Friday.
Files released by the Justice Department starting last month showed a close relationship in which Ruemmler described Epstein as an “older brother” and downplayed his sex crimes, even signing off her emails with “xoxo.”
In one eyebrow-raising message, first reported by CNN, Ruemmler emailed Epstein on his 62nd birthday in 2015: “I hope you enjoy the day with your one true love :-)”
Epstein replied: “they say that men usually gvie [sic] a name to their penis, as [it] would be inappropriate to make love to a total stranger.”
“Hard to believe that there is still an open question about whether men are [the] inferior gender,” wrote Ruemmler — among thousands of emails she exchanged with Epstein before his second arrest for sex crimes, in 2019.
The former Latham and Watkins attorney regularly gushed over the gifts lavished upon her by the disgraced financier, whom she once referred to as Uncle Jeffrey.
The messages also show that Ruemmler helped Epstein coordinate a response when ABC News was preparing a segment on “Good Morning America” featuring one of his accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
She never formally represented the convicted sex offender as his attorney, but regularly sought his advice on her possible career moves including how to land a top job at Facebook, now known as Meta.
Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019. He died in his Manhattan jail cell the following month, in what New York City’s chief medical examiner called a suicide.
The recently released documents provided more details about Epstein’s ties to prominent people in politics, finance and academia, both before and after his 2008 guilty plea.
In 2018, a third party whose name was redacted by the government emailed Ruemmler to say that Epstein wanted to buy a band for her Apple Watch.
“I love the Hermes one!” she responded. “If truly okay with him to do the Hermes, I would love the 40 mm, stainless Hermes with bleu indigo swift leather double tour.”
Ruemmler was one of Solomon’s first major hires when he took over the reins at 200 West St. and was seen as one of his top loyalists at Goldman.
