Nothing is official yet but signs do indeed suggest Kimberly Guilfoyle, our current Ambassador to Greece is about to be thrown under the bus. Or maybe tossed into the middle of the Mediterranean. For sure Trump and Rubio too are creating some distance and if Don Jr.’s former finance feels like she’s being cast aside you might want to have plenty of popcorn on hand. Trump has plenty of headaches these days and the tabloid type news featuring a former supporter and major GOP donor trashing Guilfoyle over her begging for a bribe comes at a pretty bad time for Trump’s already scandal ridden organization.
I used the term tabloid style news because the allegations, which apparently the donor can back up is a tawdry, trashy and desperate attempt by Guilfoyle to avoid embarrassing questions about her debts/finances as her confirmation to be Ambassador was looming. You can read some of the details reported by The Idaho Public Press and they lay out a typical piece of Team Trump grifting. Trump donor Eric Deters claims she asked him to pay a $100,000 American Express bill in exchange for access to senior administration officials.
Gilfoyle of course disputes the allegation which is what you’d expect. However, if the Idaho State Press isn’t a big-name enough source for you their article notes messages exchange between Guilfoyle and Deters were reported by outlets you definitely have heard of:
The allegations have not been established, and Guilfoyle has disputed the authenticity of messages reported by The Wall Street Journal. Still, the watchdog review raises the stakes beyond a public dispute between a donor and a well-connected ambassador: it puts the conduct of a U.S. diplomatic mission under official scrutiny.
Two people familiar with the decision told NBC News that the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General is looking into Guilfoyle and the U.S. Embassy in Greece. The office is the department’s internal watchdog, responsible for oversight of departmental programs and personnel.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Yesterday Trump apparently was asked about the matter. We didn’t get a “FAKE NEWS” type response from him. Instead he dismissed it all saying “I just heard about it. It’s too bad.” To me at least Trump’s statement is the sound of the bus revving its engines as it prepares to roll over what’s left of Guilfoyle’s career and connection (already tenuous) to Trump World. She was around Trump World for years in her seemingly forever engagement to Don Jr. before he dumped her and moved on. Still, in all those years Guilfoyle had to learn where more than a few proverbial bodies were buried.
When it comes to looking out for himself Trump has been feral in sensing danger and he surely expected Guilfoyle wouldn’t just quietly fade away. He had to buy her off somehow and no doubt promised her something ‘bigly’ to keep her from writing a tell-all. Ambassadorships are often used as rewards. This one was a payoff. While not at the top of the list of important and/or glamorous Ambassadorships Greece would be a pretty good one. For people with money and privilege (or both) Greece can be an idyllic place. All that history. Countless beautiful places along the Mediterranean coast or the islands. More importantly Greece is seldom a place that’s in the news here in the U.S. Trump found the perfect spot for Guilfoyle, where she couldn’t do much damage and was unlikely to make any news.
Well, as we can see that last part of the deal went bad! The past week wasn’t just news stories, but audio and video of Deters making quite a scene. I saw clips of Deters on a podcast ripping on Guilfoyle. In addition to her pressuring him to help cover a 100k Amex bill (Deters even invoked his wife saying she’d kill him if he did it – talk about Jerry Springer/tabloid!) he griped about hundreds of thousands he’d already given to her without getting the services she promised to provide. Yep, I can see why he feared what his wife might do. But when Deters spoke out he ‘had receipts’:
According to NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, Deters provided messages in which Guilfoyle appeared to instruct him to send money directly to American Express, saying it would not “show up anywhere” that way. Deters told NBC that he did not make the payment.
Deters says Guilfoyle offered unusually broad access to Trump administration officials in return. He characterized the arrangement as a quid pro quo, while also saying he sought her assistance connecting with the Justice Department and the IRS over personal tax and legal issues.
That context matters. The allegation is not simply that a public official sought financial help; it is that a request for personal money was paired with offers of government access. If substantiated, that pairing would raise obvious ethics concerns involving an ambassador and people seeking influence with an administration.
At this point you might be agreeing it’s sleazy and all, but did you notice above the part about the State Department Inspector General? Being the Trump administration you might assume nothing will happen. Trump after all fired IGs in his first term or blew them off. Add in his turning the DOJ into his personal law firm both for defense and to attack enemies it’s easy enough to imagine him doing the same with State’s IG. It’s not like Marco Rubio would try to stop him.
For all the Jerry Springer type entertainment I want to point out something you might have glance over earlier. There’s another part from the linked article that suggests this solicitation of a bribe doesn’t stand alone. It’s a thread that can and apparently is being pulled on. Reporting suggests the IG is looking into the broader operations of goings on at the diplomatic Mission in Greece. Although not discussed much with this story Greece is a country that’s had it’s own issues with corruption over time. Who knows what mischief a corrupt U.S. Ambassador might get into there?
We don’t know the scope of the IG inquiry but with Rubio making like Trump and creating distance from the headline part that we know about it’s not a stretch to think that the investigation, especially with Democrats about to retake control of the House saying they will be looking into all this. Trump’s comment “It’s too bad” takes on a new meaning in this context. If indeed he’s greenlighted a full IG investigation it means the clock is ticking on Guilfoyle’s time as a member of Trump’s administration.
That brings us to the question of how she’ll react. She seemed to be doing what Trump wanted and expected. Keeping out of the news because she had plenty of perks to soothe her bruised ego. Jr. did after all not only dump her but after a relatively brief engagement marry someone else. I can’t help but wonder if Junior’s wedding being in the news is connected to all this. Deters might have been done with her but it’s not hard to imagine her trying to hit up other big Trump donors like him, and that word got back to him.
Maybe there’s another explanation for him going public like having been contacted by the IG and having to hire an expensive lawyer. However grifters are going to grift, and perhaps Deters wanted to make it impossible for Guilfoyle to get away with doing to others what she did to him. Regardless, if as it seems she’s going down again I don’t see her doing so without a fight. That’s why I say keep a supply of popcorn handy because we might be in for major fireworks.
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