Ex-Obama Official Sought Epstein’s Help Amid Report Suggesting She Covered Up White House Prostitution Scandal

Former Obama White House lawyer Kathy Ruemmler turned to Jeffrey Epstein for help in responding to allegations that she helped cover up an aide’s prostitution scandal, which emerged as she was considering becoming attorney general, emails released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) reveal.

Ruemmler, who resigned as Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer on Thursday because of his close ties to Epstein, asked the convicted sex offender to workshop his response to an October 2014 press investigation.

White House aides, including Ruemmler, allegedly failed to “thoroughly” investigate or publicly acknowledge evidence that a prostitute spent the night in the hotel room of a preliminary team volunteer during a trip to Colombia in 2012, the Washington Post reported on October 8, 2014. Ruemmler left the White House in May 2014 and was working in private practice when the story broke. (RELATED: Epstein Helped Fund Lavish Lifestyle for Former Obama Lawyer WH)

“[H]how are you,” Epstein emailed Ruemmler on October 9, after the story was published.

“It’s fine,” she replied. “I was talking to reporters until late morning last night. I was trying to isolate/contain the wapo.”

On October 17, 2014, Ruemmler sent Epstein his draft response to an email from “Carol” – presumably Carol D. Leonnig, then a Washington Post reporter who broke the original report – regarding a “second phase” of his story.

Epstein questioned whether the aide had always denied the incident. “[I]“Important point,” he wrote, according to emails released by the DOJ.

Ruemmler claimed he did, noting that she “made a few more adjustments.”

Ruemmler and the Obama Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ruemmler, October 17, 2014, email to Epstein. (Credit: screenshot/DOJ)

“Hey, the lawyer’s letter said it was the prostitute who wrote down the room number. ??” Epstein followed through after Ruemmler said she was reviewing his edits. “That’s a totally different version of the story, if it wasn’t the hotel employee who wrote it, i.e. how often do prostitutes lie about which room they’re headed to??”

Ruemmler said she didn’t know. “[C]It could have been the prostitute, it could have been the hotel employee,” she wrote.

“This whole thing is ridiculous – they had to get the deal ‘under the table’ because the last thing Hilton wanted to do is voluntarily disclose information involving the privacy of their guests,” Ruemmler told Epstein. “The procedure for controlling prostitutes is hardly rigorous.”

Later that same day, Kathy forwarded Epstein a letter that the aide’s lawyer had sent to the Washington Post reporter, urging him not to use her name in future articles.

Then-Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan reportedly told Ruemmler on April 20, 2012, that there was evidence that a member of the White House advance team was part of the broader prostitution scandal involving Secret Service agents and military personnel. Then-White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on April 23, 2012, that a study found “no indication of any misconduct.”

“As was reported more than two years ago, the White House conducted an internal review that did not identify any inappropriate behavior on the part of the White House preparatory team,” Eric Schultz, then a White House spokesman, said in response to the 2014 Washington Post article.

The White House aide allegedly involved in the prostitution scandal was the son of a wealthy Obama campaign donor, the Washington Post reported.

2017. Kathryn Ruemmler, good friend of Jeffrey Epstein, says she headed Obama’s audit and ethics department and was responsible for vetting everyone in Obama’s cabinet.

Ruemmler also said she was saddened because Trump had “degraded” the presidency.

Ruemmler was so… pic.twitter.com/cw0afN1t8Y

– LABYRINTH (@mazemoore) February 13, 2026

Ruemmler was still under consideration to become Obama’s new attorney general when the Washington Post story broke. It was reported that Ruemmler dropped out of the race on October 24, 2014.

“I fear she should have stepped down last week,” Lawrence Summers, former director of the National Economic Council in the Obama White House, wrote in an Oct. 8 email to Epstein forwarding the story.

“I have some ideas,” Epstein replied. “Call when you have a moment.”

Summers resigned from OpenAI’s board in November following emails revealing his contacts with Epstein leading up to his arrest in 2019, saying he was “deeply ashamed” of his actions. Harvard University, where Summers served as president from 2001 to 2006, also launched an investigation into his relationship with Epstein.

“My responsibility is to put the interests of Goldman Sachs first,” Ruemmler said in a statement Thursday about his resignation, according to the New York Times. A staff-wide email announcing her resignation said she would continue to “work with our teams” to ease the transition until June 30, according to the New York Times.

Goldman Sachs executives knew Ruemmler had business dealings with Epstein when she was hired in 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Previously reported emails show that Ruemmler consulted with Epstein about whether to take on the role of Obama’s attorney general, sharing in a September 20, 2014 email that she was “pretty stuck” after signing a one-year lease on an $11,000-a-month apartment in New York.

Epstein purchased numerous gifts for Ruemmler between 2014 and 2019, such as designer bags, electronics, spa days and more. He sometimes obtained legal advice and helped answer questions from the media.

“I love him,” Ruemmler wrote in a Dec. 25, 2015, email. “It’s like having another older brother! »

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