Former U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle attempted to stave off termination by claiming that leaked Signal messages showing her soliciting a $100,000 payment from a Republican megadonor were artificially generated, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
The Signal Messages and the White House Fallout
The controversy centers on text communications reviewed by the Wall Street Journal in which Guilfoyle asked donor Eric Deters to deposit $100,000 into her American Express account. “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express,” she wrote, according to the reporting. Deters had communicated with Guilfoyle for months, seeking help with tax and legal problems while promising as much as $1 million if she leveraged her connections to the president. Guilfoyle reportedly relayed messages she sent to the Internal Revenue Service on his behalf and told Deters she was lobbying the Department of Justice for him.
Following a second exposé published by the Journal detailing these financial solicitations ahead of her confirmation hearing last year, Guilfoyle reached out to White House officials. She insisted that the text messages were AI-generated. The officials did not believe her claims, as Journal reporters had already verified the authenticity of the donor’s text messages.
President Donald Trump subsequently called for Guilfoyle to step down, explaining to reporters, “We didn’t like what we were reading.” Guilfoyle officially resigned as Ambassador to Greece on Tuesday, after new White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia announced the administration had asked her to leave.
Attempts to Suppress the Fallout
Before her resignation, Guilfoyle worked aggressively to control the narrative. She attempted to find the source of the leaks, accusing embassy staff and her security team, and contacted Matthew Boyle of Breitbart in an effort to get the publication to lobby the administration on her behalf. She also asked the State Department if it could take down a Daily Mail article claiming she failed to pay a $1,768 tab for two cases of champagne and dinner. When State Department officials asked for a receipt showing payment, she provided none.
Anonymous GOP strategists speaking to the Hill noted that the looming midterm elections made it impossible for the administration to tolerate the ongoing distraction. “When Trump says, ‘I didn’t want to continue reading about this,’ he’s telling the truth; it had become too big a distraction when it’s an all-hands-on-deck moment for the GOP,” one source stated.
