Former Obama White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler said she regrets interacting with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and believes now it was a mistake, according to opening remarks she delivered to House committee investigators as part of a closed-door interview.
“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,” Ruemmler said, according to prepared remarks provided to CNN. “But many people assume that given everything we know now about Epstein, everyone who dealt with him before his 2019 indictment must have known everything then. In my case, that assumption is completely wrong.”
Ruemmler was called to testify voluntarily by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee for a closed-door interview as part of the congressional probe into Epstein after numerous news stories scrutinized her ties to the disgraced financier. Reporting from CNN’s KFILE detailed the extent of her relationship with Epstein, including that she was among a small group of advisers to help him ward off legal and reputational risk during the final years of his life.
Ruemmler did not specifically address how she sought to help Epstein protect his reputation in her opening remarks but did say, “even though I wasn’t his lawyer, he sought my advice from time to time, as many people do. I was friendly with him in that context, and I dealt with him in my ordinary course — casually, informally, and sometimes irreverently.” She also said that Epstein was never her client.
