Day: November 13, 2025

• Kathryn Ruemmler, now Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer, sought career advice from Jeffrey Epstein.
• Newly revealed emails show her relationship with Epstein was deeper than previously known.
• Ruemmler confided in Epstein about Trump and whether she should take the job of US Attorney General.

When high-powered Democratic attorney Kathryn Ruemmler — now the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs — needed to vent about Donald Trump’s rise in politics, she turned to their mutual acquaintance, Jeffrey Epstein.

“Trump is living proof of the adage that it is better to be lucky than smart,” she told Epstein in an email in August 2015, while planning a visit to his Manhattan mansion.

Later, Ruemmler expressed alarm about Trump’s climb in the polls.

“The Trump success is seriously scary,” she wrote in February 2016.

The two chatted frequently about the 2016 presidential election and transition. (Ruemmler wasn’t a fan of Steve Mnuchin, who went on to become Trump’s treasury secretary.) They shared gripes well into Trump’s first term, as well as news articles on everything from Trump’s approach to Big Tech companies to the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“Trump is truly stupid,” Ruemmler wrote in one 2017 email. “Trump is so gross,” she said a few months earlier.

The emails, released by the House Oversight Committee this week, were exchanged during Trump’s first term in office and before Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs five years ago.

Ruemmler has previously said she regrets her association with Epstein.

“The personal emails exclusively occurred before Kathy worked at Goldman Sachs, when Ms. Ruemmler was the global head of the White Collar Defense practice at Latham and Watkins,” Goldman Sachs spokesperson Tony Fratto told Business Insider Thursday. “As we’ve said before, and has been repeatedly reported, Ms. Ruemmler had a professional relationship with Mr. Epstein when she was at Latham & Watkins.”

The newly released emails suggest a deeper relationship between Ruemmler and Epstein than was previously known.

Ruemmler confided in Epstein when a rival law firm tried to poach her, when looking for a New York City apartment, and when she was being vetted for consideration as attorney general of the United States. She also turned to him for minor issues, like what it’s like to fly Emirates, the airline.

“When I go to Dubai on Emirates, do I need to go first or is business class good enough given that I only care about slepeping?” Ruemmler asked Epstein after telling him Apple had hired her for a patent lawsuit.

Epstein said “biz is ok,” but offered her a ride on a friend’s private jet. Ruemmler said she’d stick with the commercial airline.

A legal star feted by Epstein

The exchanges span from 2014, shortly after Ruemmler left her job as White House Counsel under President Barack Obama, until June 2019, a month before Epstein was arrested on sex-trafficking charges. Nothing in the emails, which the House Oversight Committee obtained from Epstein’s estate, suggests Ruemmler had knowledge of the alleged conduct.

At the time, Ruemmler worked at the Big Law firm Latham & Watkins, which had previously said Epstein was never a client of the firm; it did not respond to requests for comment about the latest emails.

Ruemmler was widely viewed as a legal star in the Democratic Party. She was floated as a possible Supreme Court pick and had served as a lawyer in Bill Clinton’s White House.

Ruemmler moved to Goldman Sachs in 2020 and now serves as the investment bank’s chief legal officer and general counsel. She serves on Goldman Sachs’ Firmwide Reputational Risk Committee, according to the bank’s website.

Epstein — a financier with connections to titans of finance, science, and global politics — killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019. He had previously pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting an underage girl for sex.

It is unclear from the emails whether Epstein ever hired Ruemmler as a lawyer. At least three emails from Ruemmler to Epstein were redacted for what was described as “privilege.” A lawyer for the executors of Epstein’s estate, which provided the emails to the House Oversight Committee, didn’t respond to a request for comment about the redactions.

On several occasions, Epstein looped Ruemmler into email discussions with other prominent attorneys he had personally hired, including Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr, Martin Weinberg, and Darren Indyke.

Epstein and Ruemmler often emailed each other asking to speak on the phone. He included her in emails with other attorneys about responding to press inquiries about his relationship with Trump and Clinton. Epstein also forwarded to her a plan that the writer Michael Wolff presented to him in 2016 about countering the impending negative press from the James Patterson book “Filthy Rich,” which is about Epstein.

In a January 2019 draft of his will, Epstein named Ruemmler as the backup executor to his estate, according to a copy released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this year. The final edition of the will, completed while Epstein was incarcerated and shortly before his death, replaced her with Boris Nikolic, a former science advisor to Bill Gates. Epstein’s estate was ultimately co-executed by his first choice: Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn.

To be or not to be Attorney General

In October 2014, news publications reported that Ruemmler turned down an offer from then-President Barack Obama to serve as the head of the Justice Department, replacing Eric Holder.

Some of the most intense discussions between Epstein and Ruemmler took place in the weeks leading up to the public announcement that Holder would step down, as Ruemmler considered whether to take his job. Epstein compared the indecision to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Ruemmler said she had recently found a high-rent apartment in New York. And she was unsure she would secure enough votes to be confirmed in the US Senate.

“I signed the lease in my name for a year, so I think I am pretty stuck,” she told Epstein. “It is $11,000 a month and Latham reimburses me $8000 a month.”

Days before The White House’s public announcement about Holder stepping down, Ruemmler confided in Epstein that she wanted to lead the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency.

“I think I should do it,” she wrote.

At another point in the discussion, Epstein advised Ruemmler to “talk to boss” about taking the job.

“Agreed, but I need to be prepared to say yes before I talk to him,” Ruemmler responded.

In the same conversation, Epstein offered to introduce her to powerful people in his network, including Leon Black, Woody Allen, Peter Thiel, Larry Summers, and Nikolic.

Earlier, in 2016, Ruemmler had sought other career advice from Epstein. She forwarded emails from a recruiter with Hogan Lovells, another big law firm, seeking to hire her.

Epstein suggested she push for more details about compensation.

“ask him for a financial proposal,” he wrote. “Subject to Mutually acceptable conditions.”

Some of the emails are cryptic. On one occasion, Epstein asked, “how did musk call go?”

“Well, I think, but not because of me,” Ruemmler responded. “The existential crisis thing is not a PMS or menopausal pose.”

In a July 2018 email, Ruemmler sent a context-free message to Epstein about Trump.

“Your boy should distance himself from Trump. Quick,” she wrote.

• Levi Pells, 32, was born in Texas and raised in Hawaii.
• After college, he moved to Japan — first as a teacher, later as a recruiter in Tokyo — chasing success left him feeling empty
• He runs digital detox retreats in rural Japan and is happy living in the countryside.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Levi Pells, 32, a life coach and retreat leader in Japan. It’s been edited for length and clarity.

I spent five years as a recruiter in Tokyo.

From my high-rise apartment in Roppongi, with Tokyo Tower glowing in the distance, I had everything I thought I wanted: a steady paycheck, a girlfriend, and the trappings of success. Yet I felt completely alone.

My achievements were measurable; my happiness wasn’t. So I walked away — from Tokyo, and the life I’d built — to start over in the Japanese countryside.

Japan wasn’t new to me

I was born in Texas and raised in Hawaii. As a teenager, I became interested in the Japanese language and culture. I dated a Japanese girl and watched a bunch of movies and TV shows. After a family trip to Japan when I was 20, I was hooked.

After graduating from Boston College, I joined the JET Program, a government initiative that sends foreign graduates to teach English in Japan.

While most wanted to be placed in Tokyo or Kyoto, I requested a location that was remote. They sent me to a mountain village on Shikoku Island. The village had about 670 people, and it took an hour to get to the nearest supermarket.

The village taught me patience and humility. Every interaction required effort; even buying bread was a small victory in broken Japanese. My classes were small, and I joined a local volleyball team composed mostly of people in their 70s.

It was the most connected I’d ever felt.

The corporate climb — and crash

After two years, someone at a career fair pitched me the dream of recruitment in Tokyo: fast money and faster promotions. I went for it. My second interview landed me a job at a recruitment agency, where I began cold-calling investment bankers at firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan.

Within a few years, I was managing a small team and earning more than I ever imagined. I was surrounded by ambition, but also exhaustion. My happiness rose and fell with my quarterly performance.

When my father was diagnosed with late-stage cancer in 2020, I flew back to Hawaii before flights were grounded. I stayed nine months, working remotely and learning to surf with my brother on empty beaches.

For the first time in years, I felt grounded.

When I returned to Japan, I realized that the one thing I was certain of was my desire to surf.

So I left Tokyo for Chiba, a quiet beach town an hour away. I surfed at sunrise, worked remotely, and spent weekends helping local farmers. Covered in dirt and sweat, I felt more fulfilled than I ever had in an office. That’s when I realized I didn’t just want a new job — I wanted a new life.

Building a slower business

I quit recruiting and started my own coaching practice in 2024. This year, I hosted my first digital detox retreat.

Most of my clients are expats in high-pressure jobs — recruiters, consultants, UX designers — who want to disconnect from screens and reconnect with themselves.

Retreat activities I’ve organized include organic farming, meditation, yoga, sauna sessions, cold plunges, art therapy, and group coaching. Meals and accommodations are included, often in renovated countryside homes near the coast.

In May, four people joined my first retreat — one a former coaching client, the others from LinkedIn. I charged 58,000 yen, about $380, each and barely broke even. But their positive feedback convinced me I was onto something.

Since then, I’ve run three retreats at two venues, raised the price to 85,000 yen, and now make a profit of about $500 to $600 per session. I pay local partners — the family who hosts meals, a yoga teacher, a sound healer, and a sauna business — about $1,000 per retreat.

In addition to the retreats, I offer one-day farm excursions, priced at $120 for adults and $60 for children, which include lunch at a farmhouse and optional temple walks or visits to hot springs. I also offer life coaching sessions and consulting for recruiters. I even sell peanuts with local farmers — a random but fun side gig.

At my peak as a recruiter, I earned 10 times what I do now, but I also spent far more. With lower costs and a slower pace, even a fraction of that feels like enough. I’m aiming to earn enough to cover my $2,800 monthly living costs.

Life looks very different now

I now live in a two-story apartment near the ocean with my girlfriend. The view isn’t glamorous, but I’m minutes from the surf and surrounded by rice fields.

The community here feels closer than what I had in the city. I cook most meals at home with vegetables from my neighbors and meet friends — both Japanese and foreign — for morning surf sessions, followed by a cup of green tea.

My girlfriend works for the government and is an avid hunter. We spend weekends hiking, foraging, and cooking what we catch. If we ever had kids, I’d want to raise them in Japan, maybe we’d throw in a few years in Hawaii, too.

My life now follows a rhythm that feels honest and alive: far from skyscrapers, deadlines, and performance reviews.

Do you have a story about moving to Asia that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@businessinsider.com.