President Trump said Monday he's "looking at" firing U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after a cascade of reports that she traded access for cash and steered foreign governments toward a connected Greek construction firm — raising the question of whether one dismissal fixes what ails an administration still crawling with operatives who treat public office like a private ATM.
"Well, we're looking at it," Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Ohio. "Yeah, we're not happy."
The comments followed a series of Wall Street Journal exposés. According to the Journal, Guilfoyle asked Trump donor Eric Deters to wire $100,000 to cover her American Express bill ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing, in exchange for help navigating the administration. Deters provided CBS News with screenshots of the texts and said he has "no doubt it was pay-to-play." He never sent the money.
Guilfoyle's lawyer told the Journal the money Deters owed was a balance for speaking events. But White House officials were told the text messages were authentic, and some Trump aides expressed displeasure, CBS News reported.
Then there's the money trail that actually matters for American interests. The Journal reported Guilfoyle pushed U.S. allies in Eastern Europe to buy billions in American natural gas — and told them to route the deals through Aktor Group, a Greek construction firm with no prior gas experience, working alongside a Greek state-backed energy company. She traveled frequently with Aktor's top lobbyist, Christos Marafatsos, who joined her for meetings at her ambassadorial residence and with foreign government officials — a move the Journal called "highly unusual for a private citizen."
At the January 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Guilfoyle reportedly boasted about two Greek tycoons bankrolling her travel worldwide. She also allegedly told someone seeking event access: "I'm going to make you a lot of f—ing money," according to the New York Post.
The Post reported Guilfoyle is "on very thin ice," with senior officials "pissed off" and "looking to replace her." An internal State Department investigation is also underway into alleged mistreatment of staff during what the Daily Mail called her "tyrannical" tenure.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Greece last week as the story broke, dodged: "I'm not going to comment on a story that literally posted a few hours ago."
Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality and ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., has been consulting her lawyer and pressing administration aides for advice, CBS News reported.
CBS and CNBC both framed this as palace drama — will she stay or will she go. That misses the point. An ambassador shaking down donors and steering energy contracts to foreign firms with connected lobbyists isn't a staffing problem. It's a system problem. Guilfoyle is a symptom. The question is whether America First cleans out the operatives who sabotage from inside the tent, or whether the swamp just gets new residents.
