Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump is considering firing the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, following reports alleging improper behaviour by her in Athens, which she denies.
Asked if he was considering sacking her, Trump told reporters: “We’re looking at it. Yeah, we’re not happy.” She is the ex-fiancée of the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
The Wall Street Journal reported Guilfoyle allegedly asked a Trump donor to pay her hefty credit card bill in exchange for access to his administration. She also reportedly boasted to an official in Athens the US could topple the Greek government.
Her lawyers said Guilfoyle was owed the money for speaking engagements and consulting work for the donor.
At the time, Trump said “her extensive experience and leadership in law, media and politics, along with her sharp intellect make her supremely qualified” to represent the US abroad.
A series of text messages seen by the BBC – and first reported by the Wall Street Journal – appear to show Guilfoyle asking for the money from Eric Deters, a long-time Trump ally.
“It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,” she wrote in one Signal message.
In another message – dated just days before her US Senate confirmation hearing last July – Guilfoyle wrote, “honey please I need you to get this done for me today.”
Deters never sent the money. Guilfoyle’s lawyers have disputed the authenticity of the messages.
They said in a two-page statement on 12 October that Deters owed Guilfoyle about $150,000 for speeches and consulting work that she performed for him long before her ambassadorship.
“Asking a client to pay for work already done is not corruption. It is the opposite of corruption,” they said.
Audio recordings obtained by the Wall Street Journal reportedly include Guilfoyle boasting of her connections to prominent Greek business tycoons who she said bankrolled luxury travel and flights on private jets.
Democrats in the Senate and House foreign affairs committees have been calling on the state department to investigate her conduct in Greece.
While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially defended her, both were reportedly angered by the allegations – particularly after she was pictured alongside Rubio at several events during a trip to Athens last week.
A former prosecutor in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Guilfoyle joined Fox News in 2006.
After leaving broadcasting in 2018, she joined the Trump campaign. The same year, she began a relationship with Donald Jr, and the couple eventually became engaged.
The pair reportedly parted ways in 2024, around the time she was appointed to the position in Greece.
Donald Jr wed socialite and model Bettina Anderson last year in Florida.
