If you’ve ever wondered how a monster like Jeffrey Epstein happens — how he operated for decades, surrounded by some of the most credentialed, well-connected people in the country, with seemingly no one willing to say enough is enough — well, do I have a story for you.
(Spoiler: it’s because there are no real consequences for the rich and powerful.)
Goldman Sachs General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, whose extensive and deeply cozy relationship with Epstein we’ve been covering since the file dumps began, announced her resignation in February and agreed to testify before Congress. But Goldman, it turns out, tapped a reputation management firm to try to make sure you never read any of that coverage in the first place.
A New York Times investigation published last month revealed that Goldman Sachs hired Terakeet, a Syracuse-based reputation management firm, as early as 2024 — well before the January 2026 Epstein file dump — specifically to address Ruemmler’s “association risk problem.” The goal, per internal Terakeet documents obtained by the Times, was to flood Google search results with positive content about Ruemmler until at least 80 percent of the first 30 results were favorable. Terakeet CEO Mac Cummings, who described Ruemmler as a personal friend and predicted she’d one day sit on the Supreme Court, told his team: “We’re going to fix this for you.”
But when the Justice Department dropped 3.5 million Epstein pages in January, Ruemmler’s name appeared in over 10,000 of them. No amount of LinkedIn profile optimization was going to outrun that. Today, when you Google Kathryn Ruemmler, prominently at the top of the results is her Wikipedia page, which notes right in the opening paragraph that she resigned from Goldman Sachs “over her links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
Here’s the thing about that February resignation, it turns out it wasn’t exactly a resignation. According to reports, CEO David Solomon, who has privately maintained he didn’t think Ruemmler did anything wrong or inappropriate, pressed her to stay on, and she agreed. Goldman plans to elevate Michael Bosworth, a former Latham & Watkins partner, to interim general counsel in July. But Ruemmler will remain as an adviser, with her tenure depending on the ongoing legal matters she’s handling and whenever a permanent GC is eventually named. So she gets to keep her job in a different configuration. The “this is fine!” energy has truly never quit.
Meanwhile, the one senior Goldman figure who apparently had the temerity to tell Solomon his Ruemmler support was a problem is on his way out. Russell Horwitz, Goldman’s chief of staff, reportedly raised concerns for months about Solomon’s steadfast backing of Ruemmler as successive Epstein document releases kept making things worse, according to the Financial Times. Horwitz is departing his role at the end of June.
He denied his exit has anything to do with the Ruemmler situation. Sure, Jan.
He was, per the FT, one of the few senior figures willing to challenge Solomon on the issue at all. Make of that what you will about the internal culture at one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, where the person flagging a genuine reputational catastrophe is the one who ends up leaving.
Not everyone is willing to let this slide quietly. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Oversight subcommittee on health care and financial services, respectively, sent a letter to Solomon this week demanding answers about Goldman’s decision to keep Ruemmler on. They want to know what the bank knew about her Epstein relationship, what due diligence it conducted after the DOJ document releases, and why on earth Solomon decided the right move was to press her to stay. They’ve given Goldman until June 26 to respond.
Goldman, for its part, declined to comment. Which is, at this point, their entire brand.
This is a story where powerful institutions treat accountability as a PR problem to be managed rather than a reckoning to be had and the person who called a convicted sex offender “Uncle Jeffrey” still has a corner office at one of the most powerful banks in the world.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post How To Keep Your Job After An Epstein Scandal: The Goldman Sachs Case Study appeared first on Above the Law.
If you’ve ever wondered how a monster like Jeffrey Epstein happens — how he operated for decades, surrounded by some of the most credentialed, well-connected people in the country, with seemingly no one willing to say enough is enough — well, do I have a story for you.
(Spoiler: it’s because there are no real consequences for the rich and powerful.)
Goldman Sachs General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, whose extensive and deeply cozy relationship with Epstein we’ve been covering since the file dumps began, announced her resignation in February and agreed to testify before Congress. But Goldman, it turns out, tapped a reputation management firm to try to make sure you never read any of that coverage in the first place.
A New York Times investigation published last month revealed that Goldman Sachs hired Terakeet, a Syracuse-based reputation management firm, as early as 2024 — well before the January 2026 Epstein file dump — specifically to address Ruemmler’s “association risk problem.” The goal, per internal Terakeet documents obtained by the Times, was to flood Google search results with positive content about Ruemmler until at least 80 percent of the first 30 results were favorable. Terakeet CEO Mac Cummings, who described Ruemmler as a personal friend and predicted she’d one day sit on the Supreme Court, told his team: “We’re going to fix this for you.”
But when the Justice Department dropped 3.5 million Epstein pages in January, Ruemmler’s name appeared in over 10,000 of them. No amount of LinkedIn profile optimization was going to outrun that. Today, when you Google Kathryn Ruemmler, prominently at the top of the results is her Wikipedia page, which notes right in the opening paragraph that she resigned from Goldman Sachs “over her links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
Here’s the thing about that February resignation, it turns out it wasn’t exactly a resignation. According to reports, CEO David Solomon, who has privately maintained he didn’t think Ruemmler did anything wrong or inappropriate, pressed her to stay on, and she agreed. Goldman plans to elevate Michael Bosworth, a former Latham & Watkins partner, to interim general counsel in July. But Ruemmler will remain as an adviser, with her tenure depending on the ongoing legal matters she’s handling and whenever a permanent GC is eventually named. So she gets to keep her job in a different configuration. The “this is fine!” energy has truly never quit.
Meanwhile, the one senior Goldman figure who apparently had the temerity to tell Solomon his Ruemmler support was a problem is on his way out. Russell Horwitz, Goldman’s chief of staff, reportedly raised concerns for months about Solomon’s steadfast backing of Ruemmler as successive Epstein document releases kept making things worse, according to the Financial Times. Horwitz is departing his role at the end of June.
He denied his exit has anything to do with the Ruemmler situation. Sure, Jan.
He was, per the FT, one of the few senior figures willing to challenge Solomon on the issue at all. Make of that what you will about the internal culture at one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world, where the person flagging a genuine reputational catastrophe is the one who ends up leaving.
Not everyone is willing to let this slide quietly. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Oversight subcommittee on health care and financial services, respectively, sent a letter to Solomon this week demanding answers about Goldman’s decision to keep Ruemmler on. They want to know what the bank knew about her Epstein relationship, what due diligence it conducted after the DOJ document releases, and why on earth Solomon decided the right move was to press her to stay. They’ve given Goldman until June 26 to respond.
Goldman, for its part, declined to comment. Which is, at this point, their entire brand.
This is a story where powerful institutions treat accountability as a PR problem to be managed rather than a reckoning to be had and the person who called a convicted sex offender “Uncle Jeffrey” still has a corner office at one of the most powerful banks in the world.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post How To Keep Your Job After An Epstein Scandal: The Goldman Sachs Case Study appeared first on Above the Law.
