Trump says Kimberly Guilfoyle could be fired as Greece envoy after alleged misconduct
"We're not happy," says the president about his son's ex-fiancée following reports of improper behaviour.
Trump says Kimberly Guilfoyle could be fired as Greece envoy after alleged misconduct
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former fiancée of Donald Trump's son and a longtime backer of the US president, may be dismissed by President Donald Trump from her role as US ambassador to Greece after reports accused her of improper conduct in Athens, allegations she denies.
When asked whether he was thinking about removing her, Trump told reporters: "We're looking at it. Yeah, we're not happy." Guilfoyle is the ex-fiancée of the president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle allegedly asked a Trump donor to cover her large credit card bill in return for access to his administration. The paper also said she boasted to an official in Athens that the US could bring down the Greek government.
Her lawyers said Guilfoyle was due the money for speaking engagements and consulting work she had done for the donor.
Guilfoyle, 57, a former Fox News host and the ex-wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, was named envoy to Athens in December 2024, one month before Trump returned to the White House as president.
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.
Text messages seen by the BBC - and first reported by the Wall Street Journal - appear to show Guilfoyle asking Eric Deters, a longtime Trump ally, for the money.
"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 challenged the authenticity of the messages.
In a two-page statement on 12 October, they said Deters owed Guilfoyle about $150,000 for speeches and consulting work she carried out 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 feature Guilfoyle boasting about her ties to prominent Greek business tycoons, whom she said financed luxury travel and private jet flights.
Democrats on the Senate and House foreign affairs committees have been urging the state department to investigate her conduct in Greece.
Although Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially defended her, both were reportedly angered by the allegations - especially after she was photographed with Rubio at several events during a trip to Athens last week.
Guilfoyle, a former prosecutor in San Francisco and Los Angeles, joined Fox News in 2006.
After leaving broadcasting in 2018, she joined the Trump campaign. That same year, she began a relationship with Donald Jr, and the couple later became engaged.
The pair reportedly split in 2024, around the time she was appointed to the post in Greece.
Donald Jr married socialite and model Bettina Anderson last year in Florida.