Plenty of bankers at Goldman Sachs would like to see the Wall Street giant’s top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler get the boot over her Jeffrey Epstein ties, but the only banker that really matters is standing by her side.
That would be CEO David Solomon, On The Money has learned, and it comes down to one word: loyalty.
There are some good reasons why Solomon remains committed to Ruemmler – at least for now – even as news continues to circulate that she’s among the boldface names front and center in the Epstein files document dump.
For starters, Ruemmler – a former US prosecutor and White House counsel to President Obama – is considered to be one of the best lawyers in the country.
The documents may be embarrassing, but there’s no evidence in them that she had done something even close to illegal (guilt by association isn’t a crime). Ruemmler never officially represented Epstein even if she is seen in various emails dispensing legal advice and receiving gifts from the convicted creeper.
All of her interactions took place before she joined Goldman in 2020 while she was in private practice at the prestigious firm of Latham & Watkins, where she did criminal defense work. Based on my reading of the emails, Epstein appeared to be courting Ruemmler for friendship and advice, as opposed to other people caught in the Epstein maelstrom.
Yes, people close to Ruemmler tell me all of the above are reasons why she remains at Goldman.
Yet for Solly, there’s maybe a more important reason. Based on interviews conducted by On The Money Solomon’s support of Ruemmler speaks to the circumstances of his early, rocky reign as CEO and how he was able to hold on by assembling a core group of loyalists, Ruemmler among them.
Solomon hired Ruemmler in 2020 as Goldman’s chief legal officer, and the following year appointed her general counsel, one of the top jobs at the bank. She was his hire, not someone who was part of the permanent Goldman bureaucracy. Among the latter, many were skeptical of Solomon when he took over in 2018 and soon began to rebel, leaking damaging stories that began to undermine his ability to manage the place.
Solomon, it should be pointed out, wasn’t a natural fit to run a bank that has such an insular corporate culture. He was an outsider, having joined Goldman in 1999 after a long career at Bear Stearns, which before its financial crisis related demise, was regarded as a sharp-elbowed trading shop, and very un-Goldman.
On top of that, he had some very un-Goldman-like quirks. He didn’t manage via consensus with the firm’s powerful partnership class. Solomon is an also accomplished DJ, who spins records under the name DJ D-Sol, and when his ex curricular activities in the Hampton’s part circuit began to make the financial pages, particularly during the Covid-lockdowns, let’s just say the long knives were out.
He survived the contremps first by making it clear that his detractors needed to go and they did in droves; then he solidified his own team of loyalists. Ruemmler was one of those, people close to the firm tell me.
Nothing lasts forever of course, and on Wall Street as in Washington, if you want a friend, people tell you to get a dog. Goldman is clearly worried about the optics of a GC who shares some personal emails with one of the most notorious predators in recent history.
The two are seen talking about trips to his infamous island in the Caribbean (Ruemmler’s reps say she never went), Epstein showers her with gifts and Ruemmler dispenses legal and public relations advice to Epstein. She refers to Epstein as “uncle Jeffrey” after receiving boots courtesy of the creep.
The correspondence continued through 2019 — right up to Epstein’s arrest for a second time on multiple child-sex trafficking charges. In fact, the Epstein files show one of Epstein’s first calls after his arrest was to Ruemmler.
Ruemmler’s spokeswoman Jennifer Connelly said Epstein never retained her as his lawyer. In fact, despite all the emails showing the two bantering about Epstein’s post-jail legal circumstances, Connelly says the two never had a professional relationship.
The casual encounters began only because Epstein was a conduit for another client while Ruemmler worked at Latham, Connelly says. Epstein convinced her his initial charge for soliciting prostitution from a minor was a mistake; he thought the girl was over 18 and his light sentence, just 10 months in jail, was proof the authorities saw merit in his side of the story.
After his arrest and incarceration in a downtown federal lockup while awaiting trial, Epstein committed suicide. Connelly says following the initial call, the two never spoke again. “Ms. Ruemmler has done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. Nothing in the record suggests otherwise,” Connelly said in a statement.
In a statement, Goldman tells On The Money: “Kathy Ruemmler’s job is leading our legal team, which she does very well.”
No one is doubting Ruemmler’s ability even if the Epstein imbroglio is still very disturbing to a bank like Goldman that prides itself on optics as it courts as clients the world’s largest companies, and richest people. Multiple press accounts including in the Wall Street Journal suggested powerful forces inside Goldman were looking to cut ties with her, and want her out before the end of the year.
And yet, she survives, and if you believe the people inside Goldman she’s not going anywhere anytime soon, and probably never.
Meanwhile, the firm is trying to figure out how exactly she will conduct the public facing part of her job; general counsels need to speak to various business groups. Normally as the highest ranking woman at the bank, she would play a key role with so-called women affinity groups inside Goldman. Both are now more difficult.
All that being said, Solomon knows he needs allies, even if it’s someone who once called Epstein “Uncle Jeffrey.”
