Guilfoyle Donor Scandal Explodes As Vance Balks, Rubio Dodges And The Donor Calls It Quid Pro Quo

The left finally has something new to sink its teeth into, as the Kimberly Guilfoyle donor scandal widens – with JD Vance keeping his distance, a donor on a media tour, and a records demand sitting on the ambassador’s desk. 

The allegation, reported by the WSJ late Wednesday – is that six days before her July 9, 2025, Senate confirmation hearing, Guilfoyle texted Trump donor Eric Deters on Signal and asked him to wire $100,000 to her American Express account in a way that would not leave a paper trail, while he was seeking her help getting the new administration’s attention on personal tax and legal problems. She promised, he says, to be his “Trump ride or die, forever and ever.” He did not pay. Her lawyer, Jesse Binnall, disputes that the messages are authentic and says any earlier money was for speaking fees. Deters says he owed her nothing.

Since Wednesday, the people who could shut it down have not. Vice President JD Vance, asked about selling access to a high-level official, said “obviously, I don’t love that,” then said he did not know the details.

Asked for reaction to a government official asking someone to pay off debt in exchange for access to other officials, after reports of allegations involving U.S. ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, Vice President JD Vance said, “Obviously I don’t love that,” but declined to weigh in on the specific allegations. “Of course I don’t like anybody selling access to another government official, certainly a high-level government official,” Vance told CBS News’ @JenniferJJacobs, adding that he would like to “get the full story before offering a real opinion.”

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 8, 2026

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with Guilfoyle standing at the foot of his plane in Athens, refused to discuss it: “Guys, I’m not playing this game with you.” Deters went on MS NOW, CNN, TMZ and NewsNation and called the ask “absolutely a quid pro quo.” House Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked her for financial records and two years of communications, deadline Oct. 22. President Donald Trump has not commented. Guilfoyle’s only public post was about a speech.

What the texts say

According to messages the Journal said it reviewed, Guilfoyle wrote Deters, a former Kentucky congressional candidate, on July 3, 2025: “It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express.” She attached a PDF of American Express payment instructions. In a follow-up: “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” with a prayer-hands emoji. She told him she needed the balance paid down before the hearing. Background checks routinely look at a nominee’s debts.

Deters declined. He told her, the Journal reported, that paying would cost him his marriage. The Independent, citing the Journal, reported that she had dangled a meeting with then-IRS Commissioner Billy Long, whom Trump fired that August. She also told Deters to stop creating a record: “Eric, I really wish you would stop papering all these things. It’s really dangerous and not helpful to you or me while you could simply just call me on signal.”

The relationship was older than the ambassadorship. Deters says he paid her three $100,000 appearance fees, about $300,000 in all, for events he organized in Kentucky starting in 2020, and later discussed as much as $1 million more if she could move his cause inside the administration. In a June 2025 message he complained he had “not received one favor.” What he wanted, he has said since, was help extraditing an Ohio doctor, Atiq Durrani, from Pakistan, in a case involving hundreds of former patients. NewsNation published that account Friday morning.

Binnall’s account is the mirror image. He told The Washington Times the Signal messages are not authentic, that payments from Deters were for speaking at events before the nomination, and that she “was owed a balance for traveling to and supporting these patriotic events.” Deters says there was no balance.

Since Wednesday

Speaking with MS Now, Deters says it was “absolutely was a quid pro quo” and called Guilfoyle “a grifter,” adding, “I have no doubt [she] has done this to more than me. She’s doing it right now in Greece.” He’s since appeared on about half-a-dozen other networks which are clearly part of this push for a scalp. 

Vance’s answer was interesting… Presented with a hypothetical that tracked the report, he said he does not like anybody selling access to a government official, “certainly a high-level government official,” then retreated: he did not know whom the questioner meant, and “the details and the context inform the reality of the situation,” The Independent reported.

Rubio went the other way, then stopped. Before the trip, in a statement posted by the embassy in Athens, he called her “an incredibly effective advocate for the President’s agenda in Greece and across Europe.” On Thursday, leaving Athens, with Guilfoyle there to see him off, he would not say whether the Journal account was true. “You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me.” He also said it was not the department’s job to answer a story a few hours old “when I’m sitting in another country,” The Hill reported. He would not say whether he would open an investigation.

Asked about WSJ reporting on Kimberly Guilfoyle—which includes her texts—Rubio turns his fire on the press: “I’m not playing this game with you.” “I don’t even know if it’s true or not true.” “You guys somehow walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me.”

— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) October 8, 2026

Garcia’s letter, obtained by PBS, asks for personal financial records and communications with Deters and with Trump officials including FBI Director Kash Patel and former Attorney General Pam Bondi. “This alleged misconduct raises serious public corruption and national security concerns,” Garcia wrote. “If Trump Administration officials can be bought by donors, the American people suffer the consequences of corrupt leaders more concerned with their own enrichment than the public good and vulnerable to blackmail by foreign intelligence services.” Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen’s staff told The Guardian they are still seeking information. Shaheen had already written Rubio, citing “inappropriate uses of an official position.”

Guilfoyle’s public response was a post. “Our history, culture and civilization must be protected,” she wrote Thursday, sharing Rubio’s Acropolis speech, her first tweet since July, HuffPost noted. It did not mention Deters, the texts or the letter. She was standing next to Rubio when reporters asked him about the story.

MEANWHILE: The Journal reported Sept. 25 that Guilfoyle had spent the spring urging Bulgaria to route U.S. liquefied natural gas through Aktor Group, a Greek construction firm new to the gas trade, in a joint venture with a Greek state-backed company. Beside her in a meeting with the Bulgarian president was Christos Marafatsos, 39, a registered lobbyist for Aktor whom some foreign officials mistook for her chief of staff. Aktor’s chief executive had flown her there on a private jet. Lobbying records cited by the Journal show Aktor paid Marafatsos $160,000 through June 2026 to open doors at State, Energy and the White House.

Then at a March dinner in Athens, discussing the collapse of a Romanian government, Guilfoyle reportedly told guests the United States could do the same elsewhere, including Greece: “We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here.” Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou pushed back, the Journal reported. Her lawyer disputed that account. Athens denied a threat. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said there was never an issue of the Greek government being threatened. New Democracy general secretary Konstantinos Kyranakis, who says he was at the dinner, told Kathimerini: “I was right there. There was no threat to Greece.” A U.S. Embassy official said Guilfoyle “continues to follow all State Department ethical guidelines.”