▶ Watch Video: Billionaire Leon Black testifies on Epstein payments, told to return under subpoena
When elite Swiss banker Ariane de Rothschild sought to extract her company from the teeth of a federal investigation into its role in helping high-end customers hide potentially billions from the IRS, documents show she turned to an unexpected American businessman for help: convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In this new role, Epstein appears to have helped Edmond de Rothschild, one of Europe’s largest private banks, resolve a menacing Justice Department investigation, garnering him a $25 million fee. And in doing so, he displayed another facet of his ability to tap his network of wealthy and powerful patrons for his personal gain.
As Epstein himself explained it in a Dec. 11, 2015, email to Rothschild, he had helped negotiate a deal for the bank to pay $45.5 million to the IRS, $10 million in legal fees, and $25 million to him — which he sold as a bargain.
“All less than 80 [million dollars] pretty good,” he wrote.
Congress will hear from a figure at the center of those negotiations Wednesday. The Swiss bank’s American lawyer on that matter, Kathy Ruemmler, a former Obama White House attorney, will be appearing before the House Oversight Committee to answer questions about her documented longstanding ties with Epstein.
A review of documents from the Epstein files released by the DOJ reveals details about his involvement in that settlement and how he achieved the mega payout.
What emerges is a glimpse at how Epstein mastered the appearance of expertise, combined it with a talent for brokering relationships, and through minimal work parlayed it into immense wealth.
The Swiss investigation
The Justice Department launched an investigation it called The Swiss Bank Program in August 2013. It was based on allegations that certain Swiss banks, including Rothschild’s, had assisted Americans in hiding assets through a variety of means including concealing ownership of accounts.
Epstein and Ariane de Rothschild, the bank’s leader, were first introduced that same year by a mutual friend, emails show. Epstein had finished up his period of incarceration and house arrest in 2011 following his plea deal for soliciting a minor for prostitution, and was a registered sex offender. But his social and business calendar remained full.
Epstein quickly began offering advice to Rothschild. Soon after their first meeting, Rothschild wrote to Epstein: “Thank you much for sharing your thoughts with me. I truly appreciate it as you well know how few people do so and have the courage of their opinions.”
People who interacted with Epstein at the time told CBS News that the academics, financiers and diplomats who continued their association with him gave him a patina of respectability, persuading them to ignore his past crimes.
Epstein’s criminal charges and the resulting negative publicity had, however, led to his loss of the billionaire retail magnate Leslie Wexner as a client, who had been the main source of Epstein’s wealth for over a decade. Payments from the financier Leon Black allegedly for tax and estate planning were now bringing in tens of millions of dollars, allowing him to continue his lavish lifestyle. In a statement to Congress, Black called Epstein’s services “highly valuable,” and he said Epstein’s work on his taxes “was responsible for billions of dollars in savings” and “had been vetted by reputable law and accounting firms.”
But emails show Epstein was still on the hunt for other sources of income.
Rothschild had married into the famous banking family and had been handling operational duties there since the mid-1990s. Suddenly the bank was facing an existential moment as the U.S. government threatened major fines and potential charges. Enter Epstein.
In June of 2014, Epstein sent an email to Rothschild, saying, “If I can be helpful, I would be glad to, I expect no, nor do I want any financial relationship of any kind. I am doing this as my way to do good. and to repay a deep debt that i feel I owe to edmonde.” This appears to be a reference to her father-in-law Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild, the bank’s founder, who died in 1997.
Kathy Ruemmler
In the summer of 2014, Ruemmler had just left the Obama White House, where she served as White House counsel, and returned to Latham & Watkins, the law firm she had departed five and a half years earlier. Her return came with the expectation that she would leverage her experience and connections to bring significant new business to the firm.
Ruemmler had also previously served as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice, where she helped secure convictions of Enron executives. Her legal credentials were so highly regarded that she would soon be considered a potential nominee to serve as the next attorney general.
It is unclear how Ruemmler first came to Epstein’s attention. Email correspondence between the two began in the summer of 2014. Ruemmler has said that Epstein cold-called her and offered to arrange a meeting with Bill Gates — an opportunity that was both professionally attractive and potentially highly lucrative.
In September of 2014, Epstein introduced Ruemmler to Rothschild. A mutual friendship and agreement to work together was quickly cemented. By October, just five months after leaving public service, Ruemmler appeared to have begun meeting with Justice Department lawyers on behalf of the bank.
Ruemmler has previously said she only shared a client with Epstein, but documents released last fall by the House Oversight Committee and by the DOJ in January suggested that that relationship grew more personal. Emails show that she sometimes addressed him as “Uncle Jeffrey” and accepted expensive gifts from him. Their correspondence continued until Epstein’s death in 2019. A search of the Epstein files reveals nearly 10,000 results for her name. Epstein opened doors and provided opportunities to meet some of the richest and most influential people in the world including Gates, Peter Thiel and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Their friendship proved lucrative for both of them.
Survivors and advocates have accused her of turning a blind eye in the interest of advancing her own career.
In a statement to CBS News, a spokesperson for Ruemmler said “As has been well established, Ms. Ruemmler knew him in private practice, he was a referral source (including referring the Rothschild Bank) and she did not see or hear anything to suggest that Epstein was abusing women. Ms. Ruemmler has been open and transparent about her interactions with Jeffrey Epstein when she was a defense lawyer in private practice many years ago. She has done nothing wrong and had no knowledge of any ongoing criminal activity on his part.”
Ruemmler and the Swiss investigation
Over the next few months Ruemmler and her team traveled to Switzerland to do the laborious work of analyzing client files to counter DOJ claims and find ways to reduce the bank’s fine, according to a source familiar with the discussions. That was followed up with meeting after meeting in Washington, D.C., with the DOJ to hammer out the terms.
All the while, Epstein monitored the developments, but according to a source involved, he had no direct role in the actual work.
That summer, with the bank facing a fine that Ruemmler said could be as high as $556 million, Epstein broached payment with Rothschild for the first time. “If you choose to have me and my team involved . doj negotiation etc. structuring family ,KBL etc. , we should be able to invent a method of compensation,” he wrote. “I spoke with Kathy about an idea last night. And she or I can fill you in, if you choose to want it.”
A few days later Epstein wrote to Ruemmler laying out a plan: If the fine was $150 million to $200 million he’d receive $5 million; if it was $100 million to $150 million, he’d get $10 million; and under $100 million, his fee would shoot up to $25 million.
In the documents, Ruemmler never acknowledged that proposal. But in the same email chain she proposes hiring Epstein as a consultant through her firm to avoid issues “you were concerned about” and that “from a privilege perspective, that is the best way to do it.”
As DOJ negotiations continued, a payment agreement between Rothschild bank and Epstein’s company, Southern Trust, was formalized on Oct. 5. The agreement said Epstein was involved in “risk analysis” for the Rothschild Group.
Two months later, Rothschild wrote Epstein with two words: “45 mio?” — a reference to the DOJ’s agreement to settle matters for around $45 million.
Epstein would make his maximum payday of $25 million. The two firms actually representing the bank apparently would receive a combined $10 million for their work.
Shortly after, the DOJ sent out a press release announcing the agreement. Two days later, the first of two money transfers landed in Epstein’s bank account, records show. That week, Epstein’s assistant arranged for the purchase and delivery of a new television for Ruemmler.
Their mutually beneficial relationship and friendship would continue up until his death. By then, Ruemmler had left Latham and was hired as chief counsel for the investment firm Goldman Sachs. This spring she announced she was leaving that position but is reportedly staying on as a consultant.
In a recent interview in the New York Times Opinion section she said that she did not understand the full extent of his crimes until she was sitting in a courtroom following his July 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges and heard the details of the charges read out by the prosecution.
A spokesperson for Edmond de Rothschild Group declined to comment and Latham & Watkins did not respond to multiple inquiries.
