Kathryn Ruemmler, a former top lawyer at Goldman Sachs who had close ties to Jeffrey Epstein, told the House Oversight Committee that Virginia Giuffre’s allegations “lacked inherent credibility,” according to a transcript of her closed-door interview released on Wednesday.
The 171-page transcript, details lawmakers’ extensive questioning of Ruemmler over her yearslong association with Epstein. Her comments about Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent victims, were met with intense pushback from Giuffre’s family.
“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,” Sky and Amanda Roberts, Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, said in a statement.
The two said Ruemmler’s “attempt to cast doubt” on Giuffre, who died by suicide in April 2025, “is reprehensible.” They added, “She should be ashamed of herself.”
Ruemmler told lawmakers that some of the allegations women had leveled against Epstein “didn’t have a lot of indicia of credibility.” When asked if she believed Giuffre was victimized by Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, Ruemmler said she didn’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, that were of such a nature that they were — they lacked inherent credibility,” she continued. “Typically, when someone says ‘I was sex trafficked to someone,’ they say who, when, where — not ‘multiple world leaders, multiple foreign presidents.’”
Ruemmler’s relationship with Epstein was highly scrutinized after the Justice Department released documents that included many emails between them, including ones in which she thanks him for lavish gifts and calls him pet names.
In her interview with the committee, Ruemmler said she met Epstein in 2014 when he cold-called the law firm where she worked after she served roughly four years as counsel to the Obama White House. Her firm made “millions” from Epstein referrals, she said.
Yet Ruemmler painted their relationship as far less friendly and intimate than their correspondence appeared to portray. Describing Epstein as a “masterful liar,” she told the committee that they were not friends but merely friendly in a professional context, that she was not at all aware of his criminal conduct during her time knowing him, and that he “used” her and others “to legitimize his standing.”(Ruemmler is not accused of any wrongdoing.)
Ruemmler received many gifts from Epstein over the course of their relationship, including an Apple Watch, $10,000 worth of Bergdorf Goodman gift cards and an Hermès bag. She told the committee the gifts were “inconsequential” to her and that gifting was commonplace in professional services.
“And while, you know, he may have been a little bit extra, it didn’t seem extra to me in terms of the significance to him in light of his wealth,” she said about Epstein.
While questioned about an email she sent Epstein in 2016 — “Best massage ever, but not your kind of massage,” she wrote — Ruemmler said she was making a joke about his criminal conviction in an exchange about a spa day that he had given her.
“I was certainly aware that he had pled guilty to prostitution-related offenses that involved sexualized massages,” she said, later adding, “So what I was making here was an offhanded joke that, certainly sitting here in 2026, is in extraordinarily poor taste, but it was a joke about his prior criminal history.”
Ruemmler also addressed her nicknames for Epstein. She said she called him “sweetie” in one email “in a patronizing way,” referred to him as “big brother” to show her appreciation for his paying for a flight upgrade on a business trip, and labeled him “Uncle Jeffrey” only “as a joke and, frankly, to poke fun” at his arrogance and patronizing qualities.
Ruemmler is one of many prominent wealthy figures who appear often in the Epstein files and who have been interviewed by the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into the late convicted sex offender.
Earlier this year, as backlash over her relationship with Epstein grew, Goldman Sachs announced that Ruemmler would step down as chief legal officer. The bank then announced last month that Ruemmler would stay on in an advisory role as senior counselor.
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