Obama White House counsel turned to Jeffrey Epstein for damage control on Colombia prostitution cover-up

Emails released by the Department of Justice show former Obama White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler recruited convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to help her manage press fallout from a Washington Post report alleging she helped bury evidence that a White House aide was involved in a prostitution scandal during a 2012 trip to Colombia.

The exchanges, spanning October 2014, reveal Ruemmler workshopping her media responses with Epstein, sending him draft statements, forwarding him a letter from the aide's attorney, and strategizing about how to neutralize the story. She wasn't just friendly with Epstein. She was using him as a crisis communications adviser — on a scandal involving prostitution, no less — while under consideration to become Barack Obama's attorney general.

The Colombia Incident and the Internal "Review"

The underlying story dates to April 2012, when Secret Service agents and military personnel were caught up in a prostitution scandal during a presidential trip to Colombia. What the Obama White House fought to keep quiet was that the problem extended beyond the Secret Service — into the White House's own advance team.

Then-Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan reportedly told Ruemmler on April 20, 2012, that evidence existed linking a White House advance team volunteer — described as the son of a wealthy Obama campaign donor — to the broader scandal. A prostitute allegedly stayed overnight in the volunteer's hotel room, as The Daily Caller reports.

Three days later, White House press secretary Jay Carney stood before reporters and declared that a review had found "no indication of any misconduct."

Three days. That's the gap between learning a White House volunteer was implicated and telling the press corps the house was clean.

When the Washington Post published its investigation in October 2014, then-White House spokesman Eric Schultz recycled the same line:

"As was reported more than two years ago, the White House conducted an internal review that did not identify any inappropriate behavior on the part of the White House advance team."

An internal review that found nothing, conducted by people with every incentive to find nothing. This is the Obama administration's version of accountability — investigate yourself, declare yourself innocent, and treat anyone who asks follow-up questions as the problem.

Epstein as Crisis Strategist

The morning after the Washington Post story dropped on October 8, 2014, Epstein reached out to Ruemmler with a casual check-in. Her response revealed the posture immediately:

"Doing fine. Was talking to reporters until late in the morning last night. Trying to isolate/contain wapo."

Not "trying to set the record straight." Not "cooperating with the press." Trying to isolate and contain the Washington Post. The language of damage control, not transparency.

Epstein pressed Ruemmler on whether the aide still denied the incident. She confirmed he did, and Epstein called it an "important point." Then Ruemmler went further — she sent Epstein her draft response to a reporter identified as "Carol," presumably then-Washington Post reporter Carol D. Leonnig, and forwarded him a letter the aide's attorney had sent to the reporter urging her not to use the aide's name.

Epstein didn't just read the materials. He edited. He questioned the details, zeroing in on who had written down the hotel room number — the prostitute or the hotel clerk — and what that distinction meant for the narrative:

"Hey, the lawyer letter said it was the prostitute that wrote down the room number. ? ?" and "thats a totally different spin on the story, if it wasn't the hotel clerk who wrote it, ie how often do prostitutes lie as to which room they are headed??"

Ruemmler engaged the point directly:

"[C]ould have been the prostitute, could have been the hotel clerk."

She then attacked the reliability of the evidence itself:

"The whole thing is ridiculous — they had to obtain the re=ord 'under the table' because the last thing the Hilton wanted t= do is to voluntarily give over info implicating the privacy of their gues=s" and "The procedure for checking in prostitutes is hardly rigorous."

A former White House counsel — a woman being vetted for attorney general of the United States — collaborating with a convicted sex offender to spin a prostitution scandal. The facts arrange themselves.

The Network Around Her

Ruemmler wasn't the only prominent figure looping Epstein into the situation. Former Obama White House National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers forwarded the Washington Post story to Epstein on October 8, adding his own assessment:

"I fear she should have pulled out last week."

Epstein's reply:

"I have some ideas. call when you have a moment."

Summers — who served as Harvard University president from 2001 to 2006 and later sat on the board of OpenAI — eventually resigned from OpenAI's board in November after emails exposed the extent of his contact with Epstein, which continued until Epstein's arrest in 2019. Summers said he was "deeply ashamed" of his actions. Harvard launched its own investigation into the relationship.

The Ruemmler-Epstein connection ran deep and long. Between 2014 and 2019, Epstein purchased numerous gifts for Ruemmler — designer bags, electronics, spa days, and more. On Christmas Day 2015, Ruemmler wrote of Epstein:

"I adore him. It's like having another older brother!"

The relationship was reportedly mutual in its utility. Epstein sometimes turned to Ruemmler for legal advice and help responding to media questions. Previously reported emails show that in September 2014, Ruemmler consulted Epstein on whether she should pursue the attorney general nomination — even as she confided she was "pretty stuck" after signing a year-long lease on an $11,000-a-month New York apartment.

It was reported that Ruemmler dropped out of the attorney general race on October 24, 2014 — just days after her email exchanges with Epstein about the Colombia story.

The Unraveling

Ruemmler left the White House in May 2014 and was hired by Goldman Sachs in 2020 as its top lawyer. According to the Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs leaders were aware of her business dealings with Epstein at the time of her hiring. She resigned from the firm on Thursday. In a statement reported by The New York Times, Ruemmler framed her departure in corporate terms:

"My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs's interests first."

She also reportedly resigned from the Obama Foundation.

The trajectory is instructive. A White House counsel learns that a volunteer connected to a major campaign donor was implicated in a prostitution scandal. The White House conducts an internal review and clears everyone within days. When a reporter resurfaces the story two years later, the former counsel doesn't consult ethics advisers or former colleagues in government. She consults Jeffrey Epstein — a man whose own history with the exploitation of young women was already a matter of public record.

What This Tells Us

The Obama era marketed itself as the most transparent administration in history. Its veterans filled boardrooms, foundations, and faculty lounges with that reputation intact. The Epstein emails — released not by investigative journalists but by the Department of Justice — reveal something far more familiar: a tight network of elite operators who protected each other, managed narratives together, and treated a convicted sex offender as a trusted confidant rather than a pariah.

No one in this circle flagged the relationship as a problem. Not when Epstein was helping craft press strategy. Not when he was buying designer bags. Not when he was offering "ideas" to a former Harvard president about how to help a friend in political trouble. The alarms only sounded when the emails surfaced — and even then, the language of the departures has been carefully lawyered. Corporate responsibility. Personal regret. The passive voice of people who got caught.

Ruemmler's job in the White House was to be the president's lawyer — to know where the legal and ethical lines were and to keep the administration on the right side of them. These emails suggest she knew exactly where the lines were. She just chose to manage them rather than respect them — and she picked the worst possible person in America to help her do it.