Ambassador Guilfoyle allegedly sought $100K payment in exchange for Trump admin access

In early July, just days before her Senate confirmation hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle sent text messages to businessman Eric Deters asking him to wire $100,000 directly to American Express to cover her credit card debt. The payment, she wrote, would not appear in any public record if sent that way. She included American Express instructions in a PDF and punctuated her request with a prayer-hands emoji. Deters never sent the money, but the texts—which White House officials have confirmed are authentic—now sit at the center of allegations that Guilfoyle was offering access to Trump administration officials in exchange for financial help.

Deters, a retired Kentucky lawyer and unsuccessful political candidate, told CBS News he viewed the arrangement as straightforward quid pro quo. He said Guilfoyle was essentially asking him to pay her personal debt in return for her influence with Trump world figures. "It was quid pro quo," he said. "It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express that's all that will show," Guilfoyle had written to him on July 3. Her confirmation hearing took place six days later. Deters said he would have complied if he had possessed the cash at that moment, but instead told Guilfoyle his wife would not approve the arrangement. He has since called for her to lose her ambassadorship over what he characterizes as corrupt conduct.

The backstory reveals a more complicated picture of Deters' relationship with Guilfoyle and the Trump orbit. For years, Deters has been pushing for the extradition of Dr. Abubakar Durrani, an orthopedic spine surgeon whom the government says fled the country while awaiting trial on healthcare fraud charges. Durrani allegedly billed Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers millions of dollars for unnecessary spinal surgeries. Deters claims to represent hundreds of Durrani's former patients and once stood to gain financially from successful litigation against him. When Trump world figures did not respond to his demands for help with the Durrani matter, Deters said he threatened to take his cause to the media.

In the months leading up to the $100,000 request, Deters had been pressing Guilfoyle for various favors: getting him booked on Tucker Carlson's podcast, arranging a meeting with then-IRS Commissioner Billy Long about a tax issue, and even having her send song lyrics he had written to Kid Rock. In one memo, Deters wrote that he would offer Guilfoyle $1 million if she secured him a spot on Carlson's show. When progress stalled, he grew frustrated. "I am not naive or a sucker," he wrote in late June. "I need results. No results. No need for me to pay." Guilfoyle responded by asking him to stop putting things in writing, suggesting he use Signal instead—a secure messaging app—because the paper trail was "really dangerous" for both of them.

Deters claims he has been a substantial financial supporter of Trump world figures over the years. He said he paid Guilfoyle $300,000 total for appearance fees, gave Don Jr. $200,000 for two appearances, paid Eric Trump between $100,000 and $125,000, and contributed $100,000 to go to the Kentucky Derby with Trump. According to documents he shared with CBS News, these payments were framed as consultant fees and appearance compensation. Yet the July request for $100,000 to cover her American Express bill stood apart—it came with an implicit expectation of access and favors in return.

When the Wall Street Journal first published the text exchanges this week, White House officials confirmed to CBS News that the messages were genuine. Some Trump aides expressed displeasure with Guilfoyle's conduct, sources said. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Greece with Guilfoyle this week, pushed back against reporters asking about the matter, dismissing the allegations as unverified hearsay. "You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it's the gospel," Rubio said. "It's not the gospel." Vice President JD Vance, when asked whether a government official should ask someone to pay off personal debt in exchange for access to other officials, said he did not love the hypothetical scenario but claimed insufficient knowledge of the specifics to comment further.

Guilfoyle has not publicly responded to the allegations, though she denied Deters' claim that she failed to deliver on his requests. She provided CBS News with a PDF of a letter in which she congratulated Billy Long on his confirmation and asked him to address Deters' tax concerns. Deters insists his relationship with Guilfoyle was purely transactional and political, with no personal dimension. He is now determined to pursue the matter further, saying he plans to take Guilfoyle's deposition and continue pressing for her removal from the ambassadorship. His stated motivation remains the Durrani extradition case and what he sees as the Trump administration's failure to help the victims he claims to represent.