Goldman Sachs General Counsel Kathy Ruemmler Leaves With £19.2M Payout After Epstein Files Expose Years of Intimate Contact

One of Wall Street's most powerful lawyers is departing with a £19.2 million ($25 million) pay package after the Epstein files made her position at Goldman Sachs untenable.

Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as Barack Obama's longest-tenured White House Counsel before rising to become Goldman Sachs's chief legal officer, announced on 12 February 2026 that she would step down effective 30 June 2026, a decision she said came in the interests of the firm after the Justice Department released millions of pages of Epstein files exposing years of close personal contact between her and the convicted sex offender.

Weeks after her resignation, Goldman's annual proxy filing confirmed that she had been awarded a £19.2 million ($25 million) compensation package for 2025, an 11% rise on the previous year, making her the only woman among the bank's five highest-paid executives.

A Career Built at the Highest Levels of American Law

Ruemmler's résumé placed her at the commanding heights of the US legal system long before Epstein's name became permanently attached to hers. She began her career as a federal prosecutor, eventually serving as deputy director of the DOJ's Enron Task Force, delivering the government's closing argument in the trial of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling in 2006. Both were convicted.

She joined the Obama administration in 2009 as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and was promoted to White House Counsel in June 2011, becoming the longest-serving person to hold that role during Obama's presidency. Obama described her at the time as having 'impeccable judgment' and 'an uncanny ability to see around the corners that no one else anticipates.'

After leaving the White House in June 2014, she returned to Latham & Watkins as Global Chair of its White Collar Defence and Investigations practice. Goldman Sachs recruited her in 2020 as Global Head of Regulatory Affairs. In 2021 the firm promoted her to Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, placing her on the firmwide Management Committee.

Goldman had publicly stood by Ruemmler even as her Epstein connections drew mounting attention. As recently as December 2025, CEO David Solomon described her as an 'excellent lawyer' who had his 'full faith and backing.' Spokesman Tony Fratto told CNBC in November 2025, after a congressional committee released an initial batch of emails, that the correspondence was 'private correspondence well before Kathy Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs' and that she was 'an exceptional general counsel.' That position became impossible to maintain after the DOJ's January 2026 release.

What the Epstein Files Actually Showed

On 30 January 2026, the Justice Department released what it described as the final major tranche of Epstein-related documents, more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images, under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by President Trump in November 2025.

Ruemmler's name appeared throughout the files. In a December 2015 email exchange, during which Epstein arranged and paid for a first-class flight to Europe in her name, she described him to a redacted recipient: 'Well, I adore him. It's like having another older brother!'

She also called him 'sweetie' and 'wonderful Jeffrey' in other exchanges, and referred to him as 'Uncle Jeffrey' in messages thanking him for gifts, including what the files describe as luxury handbags, all sent after Epstein had already been convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008 and was a registered sex offender.

The files also placed Ruemmler inside Epstein's legal strategy. A March 2019 email, sent four months before his arrest, shows her offering advice to Epstein on how to respond publicly to criticism of the lenient 2008 deal that had allowed him to avoid federal prosecution.

A court filing in the civil case brought by Epstein's victims against his estate suggests Ruemmler was involved in advising Epstein on preserving that plea deal, drafting public statements, editing correspondence with a US senator, and discussing victim settlements, a characterisation Goldman Sachs denied, saying she 'never represented Epstein and never advocated on his behalf to a third party.'

Further, the Wall Street Journal reported that Epstein made one of his first calls to Ruemmler on 6 July 2019, after being arrested by federal authorities at a New Jersey airport on child sex trafficking charges. She has maintained she never provided him with formal legal representation.

The Resignation, the Payout, and the Security Provision

In a statement issued to CNN on 12 February 2026, Ruemmler said: 'Since I joined Goldman Sachs six years ago, it has been my privilege to help oversee the firm's legal, reputational, and regulatory matters; to enhance our strong risk management processes; and to ensure that we live by our core value of integrity in everything we do.

My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs' interests first.' In an interview with the Financial Times, she added that 'the media attention on me, relating to my prior work as a defence attorney, was becoming a distraction.'

Goldman CEO David Solomon said he 'accepted her resignation' and 'respected her decision,' adding that she had been 'an extraordinary general counsel.' The firm's SEC filing on the same date, an 8-K form filed directly with the commission, stated that 'Kathryn H. Ruemmler has determined to retire from her roles as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., effective June 30, 2026.'

The proxy filing that disclosed her £19.2 million ($25 million) 2025 pay package, confirmed by Bloomberg Law and Law360 from Goldman's own compensation disclosures, also revealed that Ruemmler had, for the first time, been added to the list of senior executives receiving personal security, a benefit she had not received in 2024.

Goldman spent £8,120 ($10,569) on those services for the year, according to the filing. She received a base salary of £1.15 million ($1.5 million) and almost £6.5 million ($8.5 million) in additional cash. The £19.2 million ($25 million) total represents Goldman's preferred compensation method; the SEC's mandated summary compensation table lists a lower figure of £17.1 million ($22.3 million) because it uses a different accounting treatment for equity awards, as Bloomberg Law noted.

A £19.2 million payout on the way out the door is a remarkable exit for anyone, but for the woman once described by a president as having 'impeccable judgment,' the files have raised questions that a pay packet cannot answer.