Kathy Ruemmler, the former Obama White House Counsel, told a House panel that she believed that descriptions of abuse by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre “lacked inherent credibility” – drawing a fierce rebuke from Giuffre’s family, who accused the lawyer of trying to downplay her own ties to Epstein.
The statement by Ruemmler to the House Oversight Committee became public Wednesday when the panel released a transcript of its closed-door interview with Ruemmler about her ties to Epstein. Ruemmler, who most recently was working in a top legal position for Goldman Sachs, said she now regretted interacting with the late sex offender and believed it to be a mistake.
But when asked specifically whether she believed Giuffre, a prominent Epstein accuser who died by suicide, 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.”
Responding to the statement, 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.”
