Kathryn Ruemmler, 60, told the House Oversight Committee that she made a 2016 email remark about “Best massage ever, but not your kind of massage” in extraordinarily poor taste but as an offhanded joke about Epstein’s prior criminal history.
Ruemmler’s interview occurred on July 15.
The former White House counsel under Obama from 2011 to 2014 served as Goldman Sachs’ general counsel for six years before announcing in February she would step down amid backlash over her correspondence with Epstein.
Much of the questioning centered on the 2016 email in which Ruemmler wrote to Epstein: “Best massage ever, but not your kind of massage.”
Ruemmler said Epstein had gifted her a visit to the spa at the Peninsula Hotel in New York City, and that her email was meant to be a joke about Epstein’s prior conviction.
The remark followed years of extensive contact between Ruemmler and Epstein.
Documents released by the Justice Department show Ruemmler exchanged extensive communications with Epstein from 2014 to 2019, long after his 2008 guilty plea to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“I regret emailing him. And this is a – this is a joke that certainly doesn’t land very well today,” Ruemmler told the committee.
Democratic Representative Yassamin Ansari said Ruemmler’s explanation suggested she understood what the exchange referred to while making “light of the abuse that these women went through.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that several Democratic lawmakers emerged from the hearing saying they were “disgusted” by Ruemmler’s testimony.
“For her to continue to engage in these kind of playful activities with Jeffrey Epstein, and then for her to deny when we can all read the emails in the files about her making jokes about massaging… it just, I don’t buy that, and I don’t think we buy that,” an unnamed lawmaker said.
Committee ranking Democrat Robert Garcia said it is “difficult to see how she’s being completely truthful.”
Ruemmler opened the hearing with a prepared statement acknowledging her mistakes.
“If I knew then what I know now about who Epstein really was, I never would have accepted an initial meeting with him. It was a mistake to deal with him, and I regret it,” she told the committee according to her prepared remarks.
“I can see now that he used me and other respectable people to legitimize his standing,” Ruemmler told members of the House Oversight Committee.
The committee also questioned her about other controversial emails with Epstein.
In March 2015, Ruemmler wrote to Epstein “Darling, I am not one of your young things,” She told the committee she was being “snarky” after a long travel day to China.
When asked about her awareness of how Epstein targeted women, Ruemmler downplayed her understanding.
She dismissed the lavish gifts that Epstein gave her, comparing them to the way businessmen go to Knicks games or out for rounds of golf, according to sources familiar with her testimony.
The most recent controversy came when Ruemmler was asked about her views on Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers.
When asked whether she believed Giuffre was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell, Ruemmler answered, “I don’t know.” She elaborated: “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, that were of such a nature that they were ‑‑ they lacked inherent credibility.”
Giuffre’s family responded with fury on Wednesday.
Sky and Amanda Roberts, Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, said in a statement to CNN: “The only person who lacks credibility is Kathy Ruemmler, who is trying to get people to believe she didn’t know Jeffrey Epstein was actively engaged in sex trafficking.”
Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law said: “Kathy Ruemmler enriched herself while girls and young women suffered and had their lives destroyed because she enabled their abuser.”
“To attempt to cast doubt on Virginia, whose bravery was the reason so many other survivors stepped forward, resulting in more than 50 people from having to step down from their positions of power, is reprehensible,” the statement said. “She should be ashamed of herself.”
In the viral moment that sparked renewed scrutiny, Ruemmler had called Epstein by a personal nickname.
Documents showed she had called Epstein “Uncle Jeffrey” in emails and said she adored him, after previously trying to downplay her relationship in more recent statements by calling him a “monster.”
“I adore him. It’s like having another older brother!” Ruemmler said in a December 2015 email.
In the emails to Epstein, Ruemmler thanked him for lavish gifts, got advice about her career, and lambasted lawyers representing Epstein’s victims.
The exchanges also showed her providing strategic advice to the financier at a crucial moment.
Lawmakers questioned Ruemmler about her dealings with Epstein between 2014 and 2019, including gifts he sent her, advice she offered him about responding to media scrutiny and a phone call he placed to her after his July 2019 arrest on federal child sex trafficking charges.
In a March 2019 email, she suggested language he could use to rebut criticism of the lenient plea deal he received in 2008.
Her resignation from Goldman Sachs had come months earlier after the Justice Department released the files.
She served as Goldman Sachs’ general counsel for six years before announcing in February she would step down amid backlash over her correspondence with Epstein. Although she said she would step down on June 30, she remained employed by Goldman Sachs.
House Oversight Chair James Comer told reporters the most concerning part of Ruemmler’s communications with Epstein was how she “tried to rehabilitate his image after he was convicted of solicitation of a minor.”
Ruemmler’s spokeswoman disputed the accuser family’s characterization on Wednesday.
Jami Schlicher, a public relations representative for Ruemmler, disputed that Ruemmler was “broadly dismissing Virginia Giuffre’s allegations” in an email before Giuffre’s family members had issued their statement.
Comer said the “most concerning” part of Ruemmler’s communications with Epstein is how she “tried to rehabilitate his image after he was convicted of solicitation of a minor.”