Kimberly Guilfoyle, U.S. ambassador to Greece, resigns amid misconduct allegations

WASHINGTON : U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, once a top campaign surrogate for President Donald Trump, has resigned amid a misconduct probe.

“Serving as the United States Ambassador to Greece has been the honor of a lifetime,” Guilfoyle said Tuesday in a post on X announcing her resignation.

She also addressed “recent allegations against me, writing that “These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity.”

Guilfoyle’s post came shortly after new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia told reporters that Guilfoyle had been asked to step down.

“We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign,” Zacharia said at her inaugural White House press briefing. “She has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.”

Speaking to reporters later Tuesday morning, Trump said of Guilfoyle that “She went to Greece. She was doing a good job, but we didn’t like what we were reading.”

Guilfoyle, 57, the former fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., has been under investigation by the State Department’s inspector general’s office, two people familiar with the decision confirmed to NBC News last week.

The probe came after The Wall Street Journal reported allegations of misconduct in her role as ambassador, including allegations that she bragged about her connections to Greek tycoons who she said funded luxury trips for her. The article cited people who heard the conversation and an audio recording. NBC News has not independently confirmed the allegations.

A Trump donor named Eric Deters came forward this month accusing her of asking him to pay her outstanding $100,000 American Express bill in the days before her 2025 Senate confirmation hearing in exchange for access to senior administration officials.

“She was so desperate for that $100,000. It was a quid pro quo,” Deters told NBC News in an interview.

“She said I could ask her for anything and everything in Trump world. There was no request too big,” he added.

A text message provided by Deters appeared to show Guilfoyle instructing him to wire the money directly to American Express because “it won’t show up anywhere” that way. He said he did not pay her the money.

Attorneys for Guilfoyle said in a statement Monday that Deters owed her the money for speaking engagements, which he denies.

The attorneys, David Schwartz and Jesse Binnall, also denied allegations of any impropriety involving her travel, saying she “sought, obtained and followed State Department guidance and followed the Department’s travel regulations.”

Asked Tuesday whether she was would launch her own investigation into Guilfoyle’s conduct, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, referred back to the State Department probe.

“I think right now that there is an inspector general investigation in the Department of State. We’ll probably wait to see what comes, what happens with that,” Pirro told reporters.

After the reports about her misconduct first surfaced last week, Guilfoyle thought she could save her job and was making calls to allies as recently as yesterday in a continued effort to do that, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The person added that there was concern among senior White House aides about what a State Department inspector general probe would find and reveal that has not been made public yet and that could be embarrassing for the president and his administration.

Asked Friday about the reports of Guilfoyle’s conduct, Trump said it was “too bad.”

“I just heard a little bit about it. I don’t know too much, but she was always very nice,” he said.

His tone had hardened by Monday. Asked whether he was considering firing her, he said: “We’re looking at it. We’re not happy.”

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended Guilfoyle last week.

Vance said “these are accusations” and “we don’t try people in the court of public opinion.”

“Let’s actually see what the facts are. Let’s see what the truth is, and obviously if there was something bad that happened, then people have to suffer consequences for it,” he said.

Rubio, meanwhile, ripped a reporter for asking about the allegations while he was with her in Athens.

“We don’t conduct these things in a press conference on a tarmac in a foreign country because you wrote a story or somebody else wrote a story because some source gave it to you,” Rubio said Thursday.

“I don’t even know if what you’re reporting is true.”

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