A key Epstein associate quit her job but evades real scrutiny. Why?

Working in corporate America for nearly three decades, I learned that the most feared person in any organization isn’t necessarily the CEO. It’s the chief counsel. They’re the ones who know where the bodies are buried.

That’s why one name in the Epstein files has consistently given me pause. Perhaps more than anyone besides Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's convicted sometime partner, this person may know where the proverbial bodies are buried. Certainly her association with the late financier and sex offender has proved close enough that she was prompted to quit as chief counsel to one of the most powerful financial firms on the planet — though shockingly, she will still serve until June.

For years, the Epstein narrative has centered on men: a parade of shielded billionaires, aging politicians, and pampered royals pretending they didn’t know the man was a child predator. Their excuses would be laughable if the subject weren’t so serious.

No one enabled Epstein like Maxwell, chief architect of his evil. But the latest — and shockingly, perhaps final — tranche of released Department of Justice files revealed a more sophisticated adjunct to Epstein’s depravity: Kathryn Ruemmler.

Ruemmler wasn’t a fringe associate angling for a free ride on a private jet. She was Barack Obama’s White House Counsel, the lawyer for the office of the presidency, charged with safeguarding the constitutional integrity of the executive branch. After that, she became Chief Legal Officer at Goldman Sachs, arguably the most influential investment bank in the world.

By any measure, Ruemmler reached the pinnacle of the American legal establishment.

Yet emails from a period between those posts, when she was in private practice, show her gushing over “Uncle Jeffrey” and his gifts: luxury handbags, Fendi furs, Bergdorf Goodman cards.

Though she has insisted the connection was strictly professional, the emails paint a different picture.

She said Epstein was “like another older brother.” They exchanged dozens of messages, ranging from dating advice to crude jokes.

This was not cold legal counsel to a problematic client. It was a high-powered attorney cozying up to a convicted sex offender. For what? Social access? Designer goods? Proximity to power? She had all of that. It is beyond belief that a lawyer of her stature would associate with someone she knew to have pled guilty to a state charge of soliciting prostitution from someone under 18.

It gets worse.

A Wall Street Journal report details a 2016 episode involving French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. Brunel was reportedly prepared to cooperate with federal authorities and testify against Epstein. Epstein alerted Ruemmler that a friend of Brunel was seeking $3 million to keep him quiet.

Ruemmler, the Journalreported, asked Epstein to explain, then when he did, said she was about to talk to an Epstein lawyer in Washington, D.C.

Brunel soon went “dark.” He would die in jail in France. Epstein remained free for three years, before dying while jailed himself.

David Boies, a lawyer for Epstein’s victims, told the Journal the Brunel episode “set us back a couple of years.”

“We know from our lawsuits that there were more than 50 girls that were trafficked after this,” Boies said.

A spokesperson for Ruemmler told the Journal: “This was another instance of Epstein attempting to engage Ms. Ruemmler on a matter about which she had no knowledge, and she appropriately directed him to his legal counsel.”

Ruemmler, the Journaladded, “has said she never represented Epstein and regretted her association with him.”

Epstein’s D.C. lawyer told the paper he never talked to Ruemmler or Epstein about Brunel, though he did say he scheduled a call with Ruemmler on the day in question to talk about “quash[ing] a subpoena directed at Epstein.”

So many questions remain. Why would a former White House Counsel even respond to a convicted sex offender seeking the silence of a key witness? Why has Ruemmler not faced questioning herself?

The concerns don’t end there. While serving in the White House, Ruemmler shared non-public information with Epstein about the 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal and even allowed him to review draft responses to journalists.

A convicted sex offender as a sounding board on ethics breaches. Let that sink in.

The DOJ has long known about Ruemmler’s association with Epstein. Yet she is untouched, bar announcing her resignation from Goldman Sachs. If anyone needs an example of how the rich and powerful evade scrutiny in this saga, look no further.

This represents a staggering betrayal of public trust. For elites, the law often appears less a boundary, more like a lever, something a ridiculously meticulous and unscrupulous person can manipulate.

Now comes what might be called the “Goldman Sachs Golden Pass:” a carefully timed resignation, effective months from now. She says media attention has become a “distraction” — that familiar phrase that signals an implication of guilt.

The Epstein case has always raised disturbing questions about accountability. Ruemmler’s role adds another layer. When you’ve served as White House Counsel, you aren’t being asked to fix parking tickets. You’re consulted because you understand systems of power, how to navigate them at the caller's behest.

Ruemmler may have been among the most consequential figures in Epstein’s orbit. She operates at the intersection of law, politics, and finance. She knows where secrets reside and how to keep them buried.

The emails we have, the “Uncle Jeffrey” familiarity and the gifts, suggest closeness that demands scrutiny. Her involvement in the Brunel episode should be investigated too.

If she were compelled to testify, she might well invoke the Fifth Amendment, as Maxwell recently did. In such a situation, she would prove cut from the same cloth as Maxwell and Pam Bondi, women who defy every fiber of human decency by ignoring the hollowed-out lives and desperate pleas of Epstein’s victims.

The DOJ needs to stop treating Ruemmler like a prestigious colleague and start treating her like what the Epstein files suggest: an associate of a monster, maybe also an advisor.

• John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”