U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle and the embassy she leads are under investigation by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General, two people familiar with the decision confirmed to NBC News.
The government watchdog’s investigation comes as legal consultant and longtime Donald Trump supporter and donor Eric Deters accused Guilfoyle of asking him to pay his unpaid $100,000 American Express bill in the days before his 2025 confirmation hearing in exchange for access to top administration officials.
“She was so desperate to get that $100,000. It was a quid pro quo,” Deters told NBC News in an interview Thursday.
“She said I could ask her anything and everything in the Trump world. There was no ask too big,” he said of Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality, Trump campaign surrogate and ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr.
Deters provided NBC News with a PDF document containing Signal texts and messages with Guilfoyle, which were first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. The Daily Mail was first to report the watchdog’s investigation.
One of the messages provided by Deters appears to show Guilfoyle asking him to wire the money directly to American Express because “it won’t show up anywhere” that way. He said he didn’t pay her the money.
An attorney for Guilfoyle did not respond to a request for comment, but told the Journal she disputed the authenticity of the messages without providing details.
Vice President JD Vance said Friday that “these are accusations” and that “we don’t judge people in the court of public opinion.”
Deters’ claims, he said, are “one person’s story.”
“Let’s actually see what the facts are. Let’s see what the truth is, and obviously if something bad happened, then people need to face the consequences,” he said.
The White House had no comment.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week asking for more information about other allegations that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
On Thursday, Rubio chastised a reporter for asking him about the accusations against Guilfoyle while he was with her in Athens.
“We don’t do these things at a press conference on a tarmac in a foreign country because you wrote an article or someone else wrote an article because a source gave it to you,” he said, adding: “I don’t even know if what you’re reporting is true.”
A senior diplomatic official, meanwhile, said news of the investigation set off alarm bells throughout the State Department. The official called the investigation rare and said the watchdog is known primarily for carrying out routine inspections of embassies rather than investigations.
A spokesperson for the State Department’s Office of Inspector General said the watchdog does not confirm, deny or comment on investigations.
The State Department declined to comment on the charges against Guilfoyle or any investigation.
Oversight investigations into possible ethics violations by U.S. ambassadors are rare, but not unprecedented.
During the first Trump administration, Woody Johnson, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and a longtime Republican donor, was investigated by the State Department’s inspector general, who concluded that he made “inappropriate” comments about race, gender and religion to embassy staff.
The State Department rejected recommendations to Johnson, saying he watched a government video on workplace harassment and asked senior officials to do the same, and also encouraged staff to take a training course on “mitigating unconscious bias.”
Under President Joe Biden in 2024, the watchdog investigated the U.S. ambassador to Singapore, Jonathan Kaplan, and found that the political appointee had threatened his staff and failed to submit about $48,000 in travel expenses on time or with proper documentation.
In Kaplan’s case, the state said it took the recommendations seriously and made organizational changes.
“The president always wants his representatives (…) to manage people with dignity and respect,” former White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at the time. “He is confident that the State Department is taking this seriously.”
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