After leading the charge on #MeToo, the New York Times is raising eyebrows by giving a sympathetic platform to a Jeffrey Epstein ally and former Obama White House Counsel.
Kathryn Ruemmler was at one point even named as an executor of the pedophile’s will, although she backed away from it. She has also said she denies full awareness of his years of crimes.
In a softball interview featured in the Opinion section on June 11, Ruemmler — who resigned in February as Goldman Sachs’ general counsel amid the fallout over her emails with Epstein — is portrayed as “oddly naive” and a woman just trying to survive in the cutthroat world of big law.
The author, freelance contributor Ankush Khardori, adds that Ruemmler’s “remorse felt genuine” about her relationships with Epstein.
But in the Times newsroom, such a generous portrayal dropped like a “stink bomb,” according to sources.
“Everyone thought the story was a joke… it was embarrassing,” one Times reporter who has covered Epstein told The Post. “They [Khardori] didn’t even appear to have read our own reporting.”
The Times has reported extensively on Ruemmler’s ties to Epstein — including the gifts he showered on her, and the fact she referred to him as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey” and signed off emails to him with “xoxo,” according to the more than 10,000 documents released by the Department of Justice.
Nathan Werksman, an attorney who has represented four Epstein victims and who pushed New York lawmakers to re-open his estate to lawsuits (a story covered by the Times), said that glossing over accountability for powerful figures like Ruemmler undermines the paper’s own mission.
“The biggest flaw in the Times’ opinion piece is the argument that it’s useless to punish Ruemmler for her extensive personal and professional Epstein ties,” Werksman told The Post.
“However, her experience sends a clear message throughout Big Law ranks: associations with sketchy people can carry real financial and reputational costs. In a profit-driven industry, which Big Law always has been and always will be, that matters.”
The piece portrays Ruemmler as feeling pressured to bring in business, claiming she “never would have worked with him if she knew the true extent of his crimes.”
Ruemmler also said in the story, “What I did not appreciate at the time and now deeply regret … is that Epstein used me, along with many others, to legitimize his standing.”
However, the source scoffed that Ruemmler “regrets her career getting damaged.”
Khardori, who wrote the piece, told The Post: “Ruemmler herself is the victim of sexual assault … Her relationship with Epstein was based on a shared client engagement, but in the current climate, people feel free to take those facts and spin them into different and more serious claims.”
Regarding Epstein, he added, “She never texted him, never went to dinner with him, refused to make personal introductions … turned down a $50,000 gift at one point.”
The sympathetic portrayal of Ruemmler stands in sharp contrast to the Times’ own reporting — not only about her, but as a leader of the #MeToo movement to name and shame sexual harassers.
The newspaper’s biggest prize in that regard was its exposure of the misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein, which opened the floodgates against many other notable men.
The Post has reached out to Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey, who broke the Weinstein story, for their stance on the Ruemmler interview.
The newspaper claimed its news and opinion sections “do not coordinate with each other,” when asked for comment about the story, adding: “The newsroom and opinion provide insights and understanding to our audiences in different ways, and both offer enormous value.”
However, another source familiar with the situation told The Post Khardori’s interview with Ruemmler felt tone-deaf.
“You’re either a lost lamb or a powerful attorney — but you can’t be both,” the source said. “The timing felt too rushed for someone who only stepped down months ago. Maybe wait a minute before trying to whitewash yourself?”
A previous WSJ story reported Ruemmler “had dozens of meetings with Epstein in the years after her White House service and before she became a top lawyer at Goldman Sachs … [Epstein] also planned for her to join a 2015 trip to Paris and a 2017 visit to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.”
As for the NYT interview with Ruemmler? Werksman quipped, “Whoever Ruemmler’s publicist is, who got that interview placed, deserves a fruit basket.”
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