Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Kathy Ruemmler And Her Epstein Related Transcript From Her Trip To Congress (Part 3) (8/2/26)

Transcript

Kathy Ruemmler And Her Epstein Related Transcript From Her Trip To Congress (Part 3) (8/2/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're going to pick up
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: where he left off with Kathy Rumler and her transcribed
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: interview with Congress. Question during your relationship with mister Ebstein,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: was there any point in time where you communicated with
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: him more frequently? Answer? I think that I communicated. I
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: haven't done an analysis of that, but certainly during the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: first couple of years that I knew him, when I
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: was actively working on the wroth Child representation, and again,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you know, he was primary advisor, so he was sort of,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: if you think about it, he was sort of the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: primary relationship conduit, and I was sort of the secondary,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: if you will. And over time I developed an independent
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: relationship with the bank and the client, but you know,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: he was always there in the later years. In the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: later years, my recollection is that I became less responsive
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: because he became pushier and I had an independent relationship
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: with the Rothchild client at that point, and I was
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: busy doing a lot of otherly work. Question At any
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: point during your association with mister Epstein, would you consider
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: him to be a friend? Answer? I considered him. I
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: was friendly with him, but I considered my relationship with
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: him to be based on the fact that I was
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a lawyer in private practice, and if I hadn't been
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a lawyer in private practice, I would have no reason
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to deal with him, and he would have had no
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: reason to deal with me. Question, and you've referred in
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: emails released by the Department of Justice, you've referred to
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: mister Epstein as sweety older brother uncle Jeffrey. Was your
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: relationship ever romantic with Epstein? Answer absolutely not. Question did
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you ever have a sexual relationship with mister Epstein? Answer
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. Question. If there wasn't a romantic relationship, why
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: did you refer to him in these terms? Answer? Well,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we can take them one by one if you like.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Question Okay, So the first one I mentioned was Sweetie.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Answer yeah, So the context I remember there's an email
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in which I call him sweet The context of that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: is that he sent me an email comparing his prior
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: criminal conduct to the conduct that had been alleged publicly
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: right around the time against Harvey Weinstein, and he said
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: something to the effect of my conduct was money in
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: exchange for sex. This guy was dangling jobs over people,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and you know, basically pretending as if again, this is
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: his reference. I'm paraphrasing, but this is what I understood
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: him to be saying, and is not very grammatically correct.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Email to me, Okay, that Harvey Weinstein, like what's being
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: said about him is really bad because these were women
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: who were coming forward and saying he was sort of
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: dangling these opportunities to be in movies and young actresses,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and he was deceptive. It was this element of like deceptiveness,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and he was using his power within the movie industry
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to sort of coerce or assault, you know, assault women.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: But by contrast, all I did was pay for sex,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and this was just kind of strictly a commercial transaction
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and everybody was consenting, and so what I did wasn't
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: so bad. And so I responded, and I said in
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a very in a way that was designed to tell
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: someone something that they didn't want to hear, in a
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: patronizing way. The court reporter is not going to get this.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: But my tone was sweetie, like I was patting him
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: on the head. Hey, sweety, your conduct involved abusive power too,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So it was far from an indication of affection. It
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: was me speaking to him and correcting him from trying
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to minimize his own prior criminal history against mister Weinstein's.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And I said it in a way over email that
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: was designed to make the medicine go down a little
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: bit easier. Question understood, thank you for that. The next
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: term I mentioned was older brother. Answer. Yeah, So that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: was an email that I sent to his executive assistant
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: at the time that I sent it, that I used
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: those words. I didn't know Epstein. I'd only known him
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: for a couple of months. He'd referred as I said,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: he referred to this important client to me, and it
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: was a big matter. It was a good matter. We
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: did great work for that for that bank. And I
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: was traveling, i think for the first time as my
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: record election, from New York to Geneva, which is where
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the bank was based, and again he was the primary advisor.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And if I'm recalling this email correctly, he asked for
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: his executive assistant to upgrade me on the flight. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I said, or it was something other or some other
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: thing that he was asking it was something involving my
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: flying to Geneva. Or he was asking his executive assistant
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to do for me and to show my appreciation, which
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: again I didn't ask for. I didn't need it. He
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: knew I was traveling there because he had this primary
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: advisory relationship with the client. And I was saying, you know,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: he doesn't really need to do this, and she was like, no,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: he just wants to be nice, and I was like, oh, yes,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: And I think it was something like I adore him.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: He's like my older brother. Again, I didn't need any
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of those things from him. What I thought at the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: time was that he was being nice. This was insignificant
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: to him in terms of value. I wasn't paying for
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the flight anyway, because it was a business trip. And
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that was the context in which I made that reference question.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that explanation. And the third term I
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: mentioned to you was uncle Jeffrey. Answer. Yes, so, mister Epstein,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: as I said a few minutes ago, he was extremely arrogant.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: He was a man's plainer. He was pushy, he was
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: a buncular and as a joke and frankly to poke
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: fun at those qualities. You know, again, at this point
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: in time, you know, it's ten years ago, twelve years ago.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, my early forties, I'm a relatively
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: accomplished professional, okay, and he's constantly offering me all sorts
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of unsolicited advice, you know, about the way I about
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: how a whole host of things that even frankly he
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: really didn't know much about that didn't stop him from
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: offering opinions. And in that context, I think it was
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: response to, you know, again, something that he had sent me,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you know, as a gift, and I sort of in
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a teasing way, referred to him, you know, as uncle Jeffrey,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: in a way not to be to sort of call
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: him out for the way that he could be quite patronizing.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: You know, we all sometimes have relatives like that, and
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm meant. Question and then did mister Epstein
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: ever meet any of your family members? Answer? No question.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Are you aware of mister Epstein having children of his own?
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Answer not that I'm aware of. Question Apart from your
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: in person meetings with mister Epstein that you mentioned, did
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you ever socialize with them in any other context, Miss Rumner,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: No question by mister Grant. And you mentioned that the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: relationship ended in July of twenty nineteen. Answer yes, question
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: when was the last time you communicated with mister Epstein? Answer?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: The last time I communicated with him was when he
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: called me after he was arrested. Question and what was
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the nature of that conversation? Answer? Again, to the best
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: of my recollection, it was a very short conversation, probably
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: less than a minute, and to the best of my recollection,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the only thing that he said was that he'd been arrested.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And my response was you obviously need to call your lawyer.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Question he didn't ask for legal advice at that time? Answer?
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Not at that time? Were you aware that he had
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: been arrested prior to the phone call? Rumler know. That
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was what alerted me to the fact that he was arrested,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: was his call. Question and he described any facts surrounding
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: why he had been arrested on the call? Answer not
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that I remember. I don't believe so. Question did he
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: ask you to call or reach out to anyone on
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: his behalf? Answer? No. Question When was the last time
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you saw mister Epstein in person? Answer it was his
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: arraignment in July of twenty nineteen. Question and where did
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that occur? Answer? It was at the Federal courthouse in Manhattan.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Question and why did you decide to go to his arraignment? Answer?
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I wanted to understand what was going on. You know,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: this is someone who I had dealt with over the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: prior five years. I was absolutely shocked that he had
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: been arrested. It was, you know, you could have knocked
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: me over with a feather. I was so shocked by it,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and I didn't understand, you know, what he was being
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: charged with. And you know, in federal court there aren't
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: any cameras allowed in court. And I knew obviously I
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was still representing the Rothschild Bank. I had come to
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: have a personal relationship with Ariyan the Rothschild So I
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: knew that you would want to know, like what exactly
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: was going on. And so the way to find out
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: exactly what was going on is to actually be in
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the courtroom. And so I went with a partner of
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: mine from the law firm, and we sat in the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: back of the courtroom to watch, just you know, to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: see the proceedings and to see exactly what the nature
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of the charges were. Question and who was that partner
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: from the law firm? Answer Chris Clark. Did you get
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to have a conversation with mister Epstein before
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: or after his arraignment proceedings? Answer? I did not have
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk to him in the courtroom. And
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that he saw me in the courtroom
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: because I only saw the back of his head. Question
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and did you have any other conversation with mister Epstein
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: after the arraignment proceeding? Answer? I did not. Question did
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: he ever try to reach out to you that you're
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: aware of? Answer? Did he try to reach out to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: me to communicate with me? No. At some point in
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the days after arraignment, I was asked whether or not
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I would consider joining the defense team? Question and who
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: asked you that? Answer? My best recollection is that mister Dyke,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Darren Endyke, who was Epstein's lawyer, asked me. Question And
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: what did you say to mister Endyke about the ask? Answer?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I declined to join the defense team. Question and why
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: did you decline? Answer? Well, I had no interest in
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: being involved in that defense Question and why is that? Answer?
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: At the time I had now seen the indictment. The
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: charges were The charges covered the timeframe of two thousand
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: and two to two thousand and five, so a good,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you know, decade plus since I had met him, So
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it covered, you know, a period of time that I
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: believed had been investigated thoroughly by the State of Florida
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and federal prosecutors. And again my understanding is that the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: conclusion reached as a result of the investigation was that
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: mister Epstein did not intentionally recruit miners for commercial sex.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: And the Southern District of New York indictment specifically alleged
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that he had intentionally enticed and recruited miners. That was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: something that they had had evidence that they had presented
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to a grand jury, and that was a wholly different, worse,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and more sinister conduct than I had understood. I had
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: no interest in being involved in the defense question. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you saw the twenty nineteen indictment, You had
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: re seen the facts of the two thousand and two
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: two thousand and five timeframe, the state investigation in Florida,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the federal investigation then which led to his incarceration in Florida.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: You had talked to him about his previous legal issues,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier. What did mister Epstein convey to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you about what happened in his first Florida legal issue?
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: What were your impressions of what had happened? Answer, Well,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I can tell you what he told me, and then
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I can tell you well let me tell you what
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: he told me. And again this is something that he
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: told me, to the best of my recollection. I don't
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: believe it was the first meeting, but it was certainly
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the second or third. He told me that he had
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: at his home upon Beach, that he arranged for women
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: to come to his home to provide massages to him,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: and that some of those massages were sexual in nature,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and that he had I had, you know, paid for
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: each of these massages. He paid cash to each of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the massages. And that some of a small number of
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the messuses or the women who were coming to his
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: home were turned out to be under the age of eighteen,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: but he didn't know that or have knowledge of that,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And that the women, as he described to me, you know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: many of them worked in local massage parlors in Florida.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Question by mister Grant, and did you believe the story? Answer?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I believed it not because that's what he told me.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I believed it based on my experience as a federal prosecutor.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I knew that the state, the State Attorney's Office in Florida,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and in particular the chief of Sex Crimes Division there,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: had led the investigation into Epstein, and that the conclusion
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of the investigation was a single an indictment for a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: single count of solicitation of prostitution. And the federal government
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the US Attorney's Office in Miami, which based on my experience,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: my long experience in the department and in particular my
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: service as a principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, the Miami
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: office mutationally was very aggressive office. And in fact, particularly
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: during this period of time that I was working on
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the Enroun investigation, Main Justice was frequently recruiting people from
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Miami to come up to Main Justice because it was
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: viewed as like, you know, the hard charging office. And
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I understood that they had investigated the case, you know,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: for a lengthy period of time and with all the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: tools available to prosecutors, you know, search warrants. I didn't
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: know whether they used wire taps or whatever, but you know,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and the result of that investigation, the outcome of that
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: investigation was a decision not to prosecute Epstein, to and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: you know, require him to enter into a non prosecution agreement.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And then he told me, which I you know, knew
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: through factual sources, I mean, through the record in the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: matter that he received an eighteen month sentence. He received
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: twelve months on one count, six months on another account,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and he served thirteen months on that sentence, and most
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: of that thirteen months it had actually been served on
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: work release. So what he told me about the case
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: was consistent with the outcome. And then in addition, I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: should say this what he told me about his conduct
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: in the case, and the key issue in my mind
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: being did this guy intentionally target miners, you know, for
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: commercial sex or was he more like a customer or
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a john And this is a prostitution case where some
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of the individuals were under age, but he didn't know that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And importantly, he provided me with this letter that was lengthy,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a lengthy submission by attorney named Stephanie Tucker, who I
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: knew to be a sitting at the time I read
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the letter, I knew to be a sitting Federal Court
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: appeals judge. And the importance to me about the letter,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: which I read at the time was that it was
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: just or it wasn't just an adavc Z piece that
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a defense lawyer submitted, but it was written by the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Deputy Attorney General's office, and it was an analysis and
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: about evidence that had been uncovered in the case. And
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: just to interject real quick, Mark Philip, what if I
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: told you guys from the beginning, this was an acosta,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: It was Mark Philip, and she stated on equivocally that
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: there was not the evidence that Epstein had targeted miners
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: for sex, and she wouldn't. You have to remember, you know,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I was a principal associate Deputy Attorney General, and so
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: those kinds of letters came to me when I sat
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in that seat, those types of letters obviously not this letter.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I wasn't there then. But the last thing a lawyer
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: would do is go to the Justice Department and say
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the evidence shows this to the people who know what
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the evidence actually is. Because if you did that and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you were mistading the evidence, you would have zero credibility.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So that letter was really formed the basis of my
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: understanding of what his prior conduct in Florida was, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that letter was consistent with what he told me and
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: corroborated what he told me. All right, folks, we're going
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: to wrap up right here, and then the next episode
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: dealing with the topic, we're going to pick up where
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: we left off. All the information that goes with this
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: episode can be found in the description box