Disgraced billionaire sex predator Jeffrey Epstein was directly linked to a longtime senior member of the Obama administration, a new bombshell report from CNBC revealed late Tuesday.
Epstein helped JPMorgan establish a client relationship with President Barack Obama’s White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler in February 2019, just four months before he was arrested for sex trafficking.
Ruemmler was the longest serving White House counsel in the Obama administration.
Epstein died in jail under mysterious circumstances while awaiting trial in August 2019.
Authorities claim he committed suicide in his prison cell, but experts have disagreed.
Ruemmler was touted by Epstein’s personal assistant to JPMorgan as a would-be customer long after the bank claimed it severed their relationship, according to a new court filing.
“The suggestion that JPMorgan take Ruemmler on as a client — which the bank warmly embraced — came almost six years after JPMorgan said it had effectively fired Epstein as a client after repeated red flags being raised about him for years internally at the bank,” CNBC reported.
In 2014, Ruemmler was so close to Obama that she was forced to withdraw her name from consideration as U.S. Attorney General because of her long personal relationship with the 44th president.
Her position as a longtime advisor to Obama would have reportedly created a “difficult confirmation process.” Obama later nominated Eric Holder.
That wasn’t her only close friendship, according to reports.
She reportedly met with Epstein “dozens of times” between her time in the White House and her hiring at Goldman Sachs, The Wall Street Journal reported in April.
The relationship has come to the spotlight in a recent Manhattan court filing by the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is suing JPMorgan.
“The American territory alleges that JPMorgan enabled and benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women to the Virgin Islands, where he had a home, during the years he maintained accounts at the bank, from 1998 through 2013,” CNBC reported.
“Even after his exit right up until his arrest in 2019, JPMorgan continued to work with Epstein,” the Virgin Islands said in the court filing. JPMorgan even admits that “Epstein was involved in the establishment of a customer relationship with Kathryn Ruemmler,” the filing claims.
JPMorgan has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in October.
The Horn editorial team