Reputation Firm Allegedly Used SEO to Boost Image of Goldman Sachs Lawyer Linked to 'Uncle Epstein'

A reputation management firm is alleged to have attempted to clean the image of one of Jeffrey Epstein’s close associates. According to a New York Times report, brand enablement company Terakeet was tasked with suppressing negative reporting about Goldman Sachs’ general counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler.

Ruemmler, who previously served as White House Counsel under President Barack Obama, allegedly shared a close relationship with Epstein and met the convicted s– offender several times between 2014 and 2019.

She has also been mentioned numerous times in the recently released Epstein Files. However, Ruemmler has not been accused of any wrongdoing and maintains that she was not aware of the financier’s crimes.

In 2020, Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs as the global head of regulatory affairs and was later promoted to chief legal officer and general counsel. Four years later, Terakeet took on the investment firm as its client. Terakeet’s priority was to improve Ruemmler's public image, which had been damaged by her association with Epstein.

Her name was appearing in negative news articles, including a Wall Street Journal report that exposed she had met Epstein dozens of times. Terakeet’s chief executive and co-founder, Mac Cummings, reportedly viewed Ruemmler as a personal friend, and hence, his team worked aggressively to improve her image.

The firm used a mix of public relations and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to achieve its goal. For 20 months, a dedicated team worked to crack Google’s algorithm to ensure that at least 80% of the top 30 search results for Ruemmler were positive.

The team also established a personal website and a LinkedIn page for Ruemmler so that they would appear among the top results. Additionally, staffers wrote multiple versions of her profile page and posted them on various institutional sites, including the University of Washington and the Salzburg Global Seminar.

However, the strategy took a hit following the release of the Epstein Files in late 2025. Despite Terakeet’s efforts, she came under scrutiny as her name appeared more than 10,000 times in documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The files revealed that the attorney addressed the s– offender as ‘Uncle Jeffrey’ in one of her emails. The documents also showed that she had accepted gifts from Epstein. While Terakeet ramped up efforts to counter negative coverage, Ruemmler resigned from her post in February 2026. She will depart Goldman Sachs in June this year.

Like Ruemmler, Epstein also tried to save his reputation after he was first convicted of s– crimes. In 2011, public relations firm Osborne & Partners developed a strategy to rebuild his image and shift public focus away from his s– offender status.

Epstein also relied on tech consultant Al Seckel to actively manipulate Google search results about him. In December 2010, Seckel sent Epstein screenshots of Google search pages, boasting that they had successfully buried a negative article about him. The consultant also edited his Wikipedia page so it no longer highlighted his crimes in the main headlines.