Goldman Sachs’s top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, resigned on Thursday night in the wake of the Justice Department’s release of emails and other material that revealed her extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier.
Ms. Ruemmler and representatives for Goldman said for years that she had a strictly professional relationship with Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
But emails, text messages and photographs released late last month upended that narrative. Before joining Goldman in 2020, Ms. Ruemmler was a counselor, confidante and friend to Mr. Epstein, the documents showed. She advised him on how to respond to tough questions about his sex crimes, discussed her dating life, advised him on how to avoid unflattering media scrutiny and addressed him as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey.”
Mr. Epstein, in turn, provided career advice on her move to Goldman, introduced her to well-known businesspeople and showered her with gifts of spa treatments, high-end travel and luxury items.
In a statement, Goldman’s chief executive, David M. Solomon, said he had accepted Ms. Ruemmler’s resignation, “and I respect her decision.”
Ms. Ruemmler, in addition to being Goldman’s general counsel since 2021, was a partner and vice chair of its reputational risk committee. She earlier served as White House counsel under President Obama and was a white-collar defense lawyer at Latham & Watkins.
“My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs’s interests first,” Ms. Ruemmler said in a statement confirming her resignation.
For weeks, Goldman had publicly defended her, saying her dealings with Mr. Epstein predated her hiring and were appropriate.
But many of the documents in the latest release by the Justice Department, more than 10,000 of which mention Ms. Ruemmler, revealed an extensive relationship that spanned many years.
Beginning in 2014, Ms. Ruemmler cultivated a relationship with Mr. Epstein that, in one email, she described as a “friendship.”
She educated him on how the law differentiates between underage victims of sex crimes and adult prostitutes.
“I think the point is that if she was underage, she could not legally consent to engaging in prostitution,” Ms. Ruemmler wrote to Mr. Epstein in 2015.
She offered advice on how to knock down the credibility of one of his accusers, writing in one email that Mr. Epstein’s lawyer could push the woman into a “perjury trap.”
She signed some emails “xoxo” and swapped photos. She joked with him about the weight of visitors at New Jersey rest stops and speculated about the sexual orientation of a well-known hedge fund billionaire.
And over a series of meetings, she sought his advice on personal and professional matters, including dating (“men aren’t interested in women my age,” one email lamented).
Goldman Sachs and Ms. Ruemmler have said Mr. Epstein was never her client. But in 2018, as she helped him edit a legal document that defended his 2008 agreement to plead guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor, the subject line of their emails stated, “Attorney Client.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.