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Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon has said he “reluctantly accepted” Kathy Ruemmler’s resignation, as he called the bank’s top lawyer a “tremendous” person hours after she quit over her ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Solomon, speaking for the first time publicly after Ruemmler announced her plans to leave this summer, said he was “proud of the way . . . Kathy has handled herself” during a saga that has gripped the Wall Street bank and sparked a backlash among some executives and board members.
He said that Ruemmler had told him the media coverage “had just gotten to a level of noise and distraction that she thought was distracting the firm” and had made it “hard for her to execute on her job”.
“I reluctantly accepted her resignation. But I respect her decision,” Solomon told CNBC on Friday, adding that “she is a tremendous human being” who the group’s leadership “loved working with”.
His remarks about Ruemmler a day after her resignation underscore the depth of support the general counsel had among Goldman’s top ranks despite weeks of headlines about her links to Epstein.
Ruemmler told the FT late on Thursday that she would step down on June 30. “I made the determination that the media attention on me, relating to my prior work as a defence attorney, was becoming a distraction.”
Messages released in recent weeks by the US Department of Justice showed that she had accepted lavish gifts from the child sex offender and discussed with him her career and private details of her personal life.
Ruemmler also made disparaging remarks about Epstein’s accusers, the documents showed.
In an email exchange from February 2015, Ruemmler wrote to Epstein: “I told you that this CVRA case is about money,” in reference to a Crime Victims’ Rights Act lawsuit filed by his accusers in a bid to reopen an earlier plea deal struck in 2008.
“Victim’s rights, my ass,” she continued in a separate email.
The exchanges between 2014 and 2019 came after Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to a state charge of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Ruemmler, who at the time of the messages worked at law firm Latham & Watkins and joined Goldman in 2020, has denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities and said she regrets ever knowing him.
She said on Thursday: “I made decisions based on the information that was available to me. I have an enormous amount of sympathy and heartache for anyone who he hurt.”
Solomon also told CNBC: “We know [Ruemmler] as a professional and we know her as a human being. And I think that’s lost sometimes in some of the dialogue and some of the media you’re reporting around all this.”
His decision to continue backing Ruemmler had rankled some executives, board members and influential alumni who had worried the situation could damage the Wall Street bank’s reputation.
Ruemmler’s resignation did not appear to immediately tamp down concerns about how Solomon has handled the ordeal.
One former Goldman executive said that her decision to quit was a welcome one although it could have been resolved faster and with greater elegance.
“This was always going to happen. David could have spared everybody the pain and humiliation,” said the former Goldman executive.
Another person close to Goldman noted that “David might not be the most likeable guy but he’s loyal. Very loyal.”
