State Department watchdog probing Kimberly Guilfoyle amid alleged $100,000 demand

U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle and the embassy she leads are under investigation by the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General, two people familiar with the decision confirmed to NBC News.

The government watchdog’s probe comes as legal consultant and longtime Donald Trump supporter and donor Eric Deters has accused Guilfoyle of asking him to pay her outstanding $100,000 American Express bill in the days before her 2025 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 Thursday.

“She said I could ask her for anything and everything in Trump world. There was no request too big,” he said of Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality, Trump campaign surrogate and ex-fiancee of Donald Trump Jr.

Deters provided NBC News with a PDF document of texts and Signal messages with Guilfoyle, which were first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. The Daily Mail first reported the watchdog investigation.

One of the messages provided by Deters appears 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.

An attorney for Guilfoyle did not respond to a request for comment, but told the Journal she disputed the authenticity of the messages while not providing specifics.

Vice President JD Vance said Friday that “these are accusations” and “we don’t try 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 there was something bad that happened, then people have to suffer consequences for it,” 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 additional allegations that appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

On Thursday, Rubio chided a reporter for asking him about the accusations against Guilfoyle 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,” he said, adding: “I don’t even know if what you’re reporting is true.”

A senior diplomatic official, meanwhile, said the news of probe set off alarm bells throughout the State Department. The official described the investigation as rare and said that watchdog is known primarily for performing routine embassy inspections rather than investigations.

A spokesperson for the State Department inspector general’s office said the watchdog does not confirm, deny or comment on investigations.

The State Department declined to comment on the accusations against Guilfoyle or any investigation.

Watchdog investigations into potential 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 U.K. and a longtime Republican donor, was investigated by the State Department’s inspector general, who foundhe made “inappropriate” comments on race, gender and religion to embassy staff.

The State Department rejected recommendations for Johnson, saying he had watched a government video on workplace harassment and instructed 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 U.S. Ambassador to Singapore Jonathan Kaplan, finding the political appointee threatened his staff and failed to submit about $48,000 in travel expenses on time or with proper documentation.

In Kaplan’s case, State said it was taking 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’s comfortable that the State Department is taking this seriously.”