A top House Democrat demanded Friday that Goldman Sachs cut all remaining ties with former general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, blasting her testimony about Jeffrey Epstein as “nothing short of shocking” and accusing her of attacking one of the late financier and sex offender’s most prominent victims, The Post has learned.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called on Goldman CEO David Solomon to sever ties with Ruemmler, who remained at the Wall Street giant as a senior counselor after stepping down as its top lawyer in June.
“Ms. Ruemmler should not serve as a Goldman Sachs executive in any capacity,” Garcia wrote in the letter obtained by The Post, giving Solomon until Aug. 21 to respond.
Garcia also demanded that Goldman commit to replacing Ruemmler with a general counsel who has no connections to Epstein or his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Ruemmler pushed back against Garcia’s move.
“As Ms. Ruemmler told the committee, she had no knowledge of any ongoing criminal activity by Epstein and there is not a shred of evidence to suggest otherwise,” her spokeswoman Jennifer Connelly told The Post.
“Ms. Ruemmler would never turn a blind eye to any criminal activity and if she had seen or heard anything to suggest that Epstein was harming women or girls, she would have taken action to stop it.”
Garcia’s letter zeroed in on Ruemmler’s July 15 transcribed interview before the committee, accusing the former Obama White House counsel and federal prosecutor of showing “a shocking disrespect” for Virginia Giuffre, the late Epstein accuser.
Garcia wrote that Ruemmler described Giuffre’s allegations as “generic,” “implausible” and having “lacked inherent credibility,” and claimed Ruemmler “would not even acknowledge that Ms. Giuffre was a victim of Mr. Epstein’s and Ms. Maxwell’s abuse.”
But Ruemmler’s testimony, according to material reviewed by The Post, showed she believed Giuffre was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell but couldn’t speak to allegations involving other powerful men.
Asked directly during the interview, “Do you believe that Virginia Giuffre was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell?” Ruemmler replied: “I don’t know. If she says that she was, I don’t have a reason to doubt that.”
“However, there were allegations that she made that were, I believed based on my experience as a former prosecutor and as a defense counsel, not inherently credible,” she added.
Ruemmler earlier identified those allegations as claims that Giuffre had been forced to have sex with “foreign presidents, plural,” as well as “multiple American politicians” and “multiple business leaders.”
Notwithstanding Giuffre’s broad claims, no foreign presidents or other American politicians have ever been charged in connection with Giuffre.
“Those allegations … were inconsistent with anything that I had understood about the evidence that the state attorney and the US attorney in Miami had uncovered,” Ruemmler testified.
She separately said the claims “seemed to lack the indicia of credibility that one would expect” and were “entirely inconsistent with the resolution of the case in Florida [and] the summary of the evidence.”
Ruemmler also warned lawmakers against judging people based on their relationships with others, arguing that guilt by association runs counter to the American legal system.
“In the American legal system, we hold people accountable for their conduct. We don’t hold people accountable for their associations … It is, in my opinion, a very, very bad policy to start to impute misconduct by people solely as a virtue of their association.”
A 2019 Justice Department review likewise drew distinctions among Giuffre’s allegations, according to materials reviewed by The Post, finding investigators had been “unable to corroborate” her accounts of being “lent out” to other men for sex.
“No other victim has described being expressly directed by either Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with any other men,” the DOJ memorandum said.
The review nevertheless corroborated significant portions of Giuffre’s account, including her recruitment by Maxwell and abuse by Epstein.
Garcia attended only part of Ruemmler’s July 15 interview and did not ask her any questions before leaving, sources told The Post.
Garcia’s letter leveled a broad attack on Ruemmler’s conduct around Epstein, saying she confirmed that she knew he was a registered sex offender and that the pair made inappropriate jokes.
Ruemmler told Congress that Epstein was never her client but acknowledged that he referred clients to her after cold-calling her in 2014 as she restarted her private law practice following her stint in the Obama administration.
She said Epstein referred an important financial institution that retained her and that his role as a primary adviser to the client resulted in “substantial dealings” with him. She also acknowledged that Epstein sought her advice “from time to time.”
Ruemmler has said she saw no evidence of ongoing criminal conduct by Epstein during their relationship and would have reported him had she encountered evidence that he was abusing women or girls.
“It was a mistake to deal with him, and I regret it,” she said in her prepared testimony.
She also said nobody at Goldman raised concerns about her serving on the bank’s reputational-risk and code-of-conduct committees because of her Epstein relationship, according to Garcia’s letter.
“No, and I can’t imagine why they would have,” Ruemmler testified.
Solomon has pushed back on criticism surrounding Ruemmler.
Asked about claims that Ruemmler could be complicating the search for her replacement, Solomon last month dismissed the suggestion as “fake news.”
“Kathy stepped away because of the noise. We run a complicated organization. We’ve got lots going on,” Solomon told CNBC.
“We’re very grateful that she continues to help the firm and she’s involved in the search itself.”
The Post has sought comment from Goldman Sachs.
