Among the most staggering revelations in the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein document release are the details that have recently emerged about the treacly relationship between Epstein and attorney Kathryn Ruemmler. The emails between Epstein and Ruemmler range from the inexplicable to the inexcusable, with Ruemmler
routinely referring to Epstein as “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey,” and even advising him on “how to respond to tough questions about his sex crimes,” as The New York Times reported.
Naturally, the most notable thing about their relationship is precisely who Ruemmler was. While hardly a household name, Ruemmler was widely considered one of the titans of the Democratic legal establishment. Serving most recently as Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer (until she finally stepped down last week), Ruemmler originally made her name in a different role: White House counsel for President Barack Obama, whom she served from 2011 to 2014. Ruemmler was viewed as such an important member of Obama’s inner circle that she nearly served as his attorney general—and by extension, the most powerful legal professional in both the Democratic establishment and the country writ large.
So much for all that. Rather than overseeing the Department of Justice, Ruemmler is now a case study in how Epstein’s network spanned all partisan divides, snaking across the most prominent parts of the American political spectrum. Indeed, it’s almost breathtaking to consider just how wide Epstein’s network truly was: It somehow brought everyone from Ruemmler, Bill Clinton, and Noam Chomsky to MAGA and Republican stalwarts like Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. As Anand Giridharadas, one of the most trenchant analysts of this kind of cross-partisan elite networking, said earlier this month, Epstein created a network that was “coast to coast, industry to industry, right to left—as far left as you can go, as far right as you can go.” All of it created, as Giridharadas said, a “diversity [that] masked a deeper solidarity” among all of these Epstein-connected elites. As academic Seva Gunitsky added, it paints a picture of a “borderless elite [who] profit from weak institutions and enjoy getting paid.”
Giridharadas and Gunitsky have this precisely right. The files, and Ruemmler’s central place therein, have revealed that the bipartisanship so revered by the chattering class is fake and fraudulent. It’s all a masquerade, a play-act of elite Americans pushing nominally different policy prescriptions and strategic directions, while nonetheless embracing one another when they think no one is actually looking—all providing a duck blind behind which the levers of elite impunity are toggled. Epstein was a collector of confidantes, yes—but he was also someone who, in a single tranche of emails, could reveal an American elite that had far more in common with one another than with the rest of us, even to the point of aiding and abetting monsters.
This may be shocking for some Americans. But for those who’ve tracked how much of the American elite has made money servicing the most horrific regimes abroad, these revelations are hardly news.
Look, for instance, at the foreign lobbying industry; specifically, at all those American elites who’ve spent years willingly signing up working for most ruinous, most tyrannical regimes on the planet. For decades, the American foreign lobbying industry—full of former members of Congress, former administration officials, and even the occasional former president—have sucked in billions of dollars, often from the most heinous dictatorships on the planet. This practice has somehow become normalized, even though many of the regimes in question are responsible for, if it can be believed, even worse crimes that Epstein was accused of.
This industry has hardly been the stock of only one political party alone. Republicans and Democrats alike have raced to lobby on behalf of despotic regimes around the world, from expansionist autocracies in places like Rwanda or Morocco to decades-long dictatorships in places like Tajikistan or China. Former presidents like Bill Clinton have willingly opened up their foundations to accept tens of millions of dollars from some of the most horrific governments on the planet, while former GOP stalwarts like Bob Dole preferred to make money laundering the images of authoritarians, rather than ride off into retirement. And this isn’t even considering all of the related think tanks and policy shops, across the political aisle, who’ve willingly opened themselves to dictatorial cash—and to servicing those dictators’ needs, regardless of American interests.
All of these elites and related institutes have lined up to help the modern-day fascists and tyrants topping regime after regime around the world. Dictatorships like the UAE, currently responsible for inflaming genocide in Sudan, has managed to find friend after friend across the American political elite. So too have nearby regimes like Saudi Arabia, inking agreements with former GOP and Democratic policymakers and congressmen—despite all of Riyadh’s rank anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-democratic crimes. Hereditary dictatorships like Azerbaijan even managed to not only bankroll secret trips for Democrats and Republicans alike, but allegedly recruited current members of Congress, as seen most recently in the charges against Representative Henry Cuellar. When Trump dropped the charges against Cuellar, he earned a plaudit from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—just a couple of buddies doing the ruling class’ work.
Time and again, regimes have found friends among America’s elite, regardless of political affiliation. As Epstein well knew, and as regime after regime has discovered, America’s leaders could be bought with surprising ease. All it took were a few trips, a few small payments, and a few choice words—and America’s rotten elite would be there with bells on.
Perhaps a more specific example will illuminate things further. Take a look at who preceded Ruemmler as one of Obama’s White House counsels: Gregory Craig. Like Ruemmler, Craig was never known widely outside of policy circles. But in Washington, few compared in the early 2010s to his reach, his reputation, and his record of policy success, especially on the Democratic side of the ledger.
Which is precisely what Paul Manafort, perhaps the most infamous lobbyist in American history, wanted when he recruited Craig to aid a budding Ukrainian autocrat named Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort’s story—how he spent years helping entrench Yanukovych; how it all blew up in Ukraine’s 2014 revolution; and how Manafort then raced to help launch Trump to the White House in 2016—is at this point well-known. It’s a story of just how impactful a single American lobbyist can be in aiding the demolition of a country’s democracy, and just how dangerous a foreign lobbying industry left unchecked can truly be.
But Manafort’s story was something else—something far closer to Epstein’s, at least when it came to highlighting just how quickly America’s elite could align with a brute. Despite the Ukrainian leader’s obvious authoritarianism, Manafort managed to recruit a remarkably cross-partisan class of supporters for Yanukovych. On the Republican side, there was Rick Gates, a lobbyist fresh from running John McCain’s 2008 campaign. And on the Democratic side, there was Tad Devine, a prominent Democratic pollster and Bernie Sanders’ future 2016 campaign manager. So too was there Tony Podesta, a leading Democratic fundraiser and brother of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager.
And then there was Craig. As federal filings later detailed, Craig left the White House and soon began helping Manafort to help spin Yanukovych’s regime. Working with the Skadden law firm, Craig helped create an “independent” report analyzing Yanukovych’s move to toss a key political rival in prison. Unsurprisingly, the report itself effectively absolved Yanukovych of authoritarianism, contending that his efforts to target political opponents were hardly draconian, and would have been upheld in American courts. But it wasn’t just publishing the report; as later filings made clear, Craig also discussed the report’s rollout with Manafort, including calls with American journalists, especially at The New York Times. As Skadden saw it, if they could get the Times to repeat the report’s findings, their job—and Manafort’s efforts to keep Yanukovych in power—would be complete.
Which is precisely what happened. The New York Times wrote that, according to the report, Yanukovych’s effort to jail his opponent “was supported by the evidence,” and that there was “no evidence” to any of the claims that it was political persecution. Manafort could not have asked for more. As he wrote later to Craig. “People in Kiev are very happy. You are ‘THE MAN.’”
Manafort, of course, spoke too soon; less than a year later, protests against Yanukovych’s regime began, quickly curdling into a democratic revolution that overthrew the regime, sparked Russia’s initial invasion, and opened a new chapter in geopolitical history. And it also resulted in the eventual conviction and jailing of Manafort himself, as well as a multi-million dollar settlement from Skadden (though Craig was eventually acquitted of related charges).
The model that Manafort highlighted—a bipartisan, elite sprint to aid autocrats, creating a “vivid picture of the ruling class at is avaricious worst,” as the Times recounted—still resonates, over a decade later. It’s a model that Jeffrey Epstein would have well recognized; the smiley face glued atop greasy corruption. And it’s a model that everyone from convicted sex criminals to kleptocrats of the world have all taken advantage of—democracy, decency, and even American interests be damned.
