Investigation launched against Trump's ambassador to Athens, Kimberly Guilfoyle

The U.S. State Department's Office of the Inspector General has opened an internal investigation into Ambassador to Athens Kimberly Guilfoyle and the embassy she leads, triggered by Eric Deters, a longtime supporter and donor of Donald Trump. Deters claims that in 2025, just days before her Senate confirmation hearing, Guilfoyle asked him to pay off her overdue $100,000 American Express bill, promising in return access to the uppermost circles of the administration, all the way up to the FBI director.

In an interview with NBC, Deters described it as an outright deal, a classic quid pro quo, saying the ambassador was so desperate for the money that, in his view, in Trump's world she could have asked for almost anything — there was no request too big. The donor also handed the outlet the text and Signal message exchange previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, in which Guilfoyle, in one message, appears to instruct him to wire the money directly to American Express, so that it would “not show up anywhere” — according to Deters, he ultimately never paid a single cent. The WSJ also reported that Guilfoyle forwarded a letter drafted by the donor to IRS Commissioner Billy Long, while her lawyer, Jesse Binnall, disputes the authenticity of the messages, though he has not said which ones he considers fake.

The Trump administration's reaction could be a sitcom episode in its own right: Vice President JD Vance said these are merely accusations that should not be judged in the court of public opinion, the White House has stayed silent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, standing beside Guilfoyle in Athens on Thursday, rebuked the reporter who raised the question, saying such matters should not be discussed at a press conference held on the tarmac of a foreign country — the same Rubio who, only days earlier, had been gushing about how extremely effectively Guilfoyle was representing the president's agenda in Greece and across Europe. Meanwhile, a senior State Department diplomat noted that such an investigation is a rarity, since the Inspector General typically conducts routine embassy audits rather than investigations.

Whether the ambassador actually sold access to the administration will be determined by the investigation, but the most embarrassing part of the scandal is not the credit card — it's the fact that Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host, Donald Trump Jr.'s former fiancée and one of the faces of the campaign, speaks exactly the language she learned from her boss. In an administration where the president treats everything from tariffs to Ukrainian rare earth minerals as a deal, it's hardly surprising that his subordinates also view their posts as business opportunities. Guilfoyle's only mistake, at most, was doing on a small scale what is routinely done wholesale at the top — except that in this kind of bargaining, the governments of entire countries, even the fate of the Romanian cabinet, can become merchandise.

Source: G4Media