Trumpworld’s latest scandal “is an open-and-shut case of staggering corruption,” said Andrew Egger in The Bulwark. President Trump forced U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign recently after The Wall Street Journal reported she pressured Trump donor Eric Deters to cover her $100,000 American Express bill before her 2025 confirmation hearing. “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she texted Deters. He had been asking her for favors, including help making an IRS audit disappear, and Guilfoyle— Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée— promised that if he paid off her debt, she’d be his “Trump ride or die” and introduce him to high- ranking administra tion officials. Deters didn’t acquiesce, complaining he’d already paid her $300,000 in “speaking fees.” While serving as ambassador, the Journal reported, Guilfoyle’s grifting continued: She often brought a Greek energy company lobbyist to official meetings of government officials and bragged about Greek tycoons funding her luxury travel. In resigning, Guilfoyle denied any wrongdoing, but Trump said, “We didn’t like what we were reading.”
Guilfoyle’s corruption was too blatant for Trump to ignore just before the midterms, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch, but she’s a dangerous person for him to alienate. As his son’s long time girlfriend and Trumpworld insider, “she’s assuredly learned too much about Trump family malfeasance” to be exiled with no means of support. Trump will likely “lateral her over to some private- sector position, buying her silence with a well paid sinecure.” Guilfoyle “isn’t the exception to the rule in how America’s third-world government operates.” In Trumpworld, “everyone is getting paid.”
That includes her ex-fiancé, said Robby Soave in Reason. “It’s fair to ask some questions about Trump Jr.,” who also had dealings with Deters, and whose May wedding was largely funded by a Russian oligarch. Trump’s sons are heavily invested in companies that have made billions in government business, while Democratic lawmakers have alleged conflicts of interest by Trump special envoys Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who often mix diplomatic roles and business interests. Republicans eviscerated Hunter Biden for foreign dealings during his own dad’s presidency but are now responding to evidence of Trumpworld’s massive corruption with “stony silence.” It’s no surprise Trump’s “team of mercenaries” are using “their roles to cash in,” said David A. Graham in The Atlantic. “They learned it by watching him.”