Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned as U.S. Ambassador to Greece on Tuesday in the wake of reporting that she asked a Trump donor to pay off her $100,000 credit card debt in return for favors.
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia announced during her widely panned debut briefing on Tuesday: “We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign.”
After the announcement, Guilfoyle confirmed on social media that her tenure would be “coming to an end.”
“Strong predication”
The announcement fell days after bombshell reporting in the Wall Street Journal that Guilfoyle pushed a Trump donor to wire $100,000 to her personal American Express account. The donor, Eric Deters, had wanted help with personal tax and legal issues, according to the Journal.
The Journal published a series of embarrassing text messages backing up its account, showing Guilfoyle apparently badgering Deters for the money days before her confirmation hearing by writing, “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today.” Other messages showed Guilfoyle’s apparent discomfort with Deters leaving a paper trail, fretting at one point, “What a nightmare[!] you’ll literally cost me my ambassadorship[.] stop writing.” (Guilfoyle disputed their authenticity through her attorney Jesse Binnall, a 2020 election denier who represented Trump’s campaign in Nevada.)
In an interview, former public corruption prosecutor Perry Carbone told All Rise News that reporting of this nature would typically spark a criminal investigation.
“Assuming the authenticity or an accuracy of the reporting here, this is very powerful and strong predication, and in normal times, this would warrant a pretty quick opening of an investigation and all the steps that go along with it, including witness interviews, search warrants, and subpoenas, applications under the Stored Communications Act,” Carbone said in a video interview last week.
More damaging revelations followed the original Journal investigation: Three days later, the Journal reported that Guilfoyle boasted about two Greek tycoons paying for her private jet travel around the world while she was at Davos.
That article was based in part on an audio recording reviewed by the Murdoch-owned newspaper.
Separately, CBS News reported that Deters called Guilfoyle’s request for $100,000 a “quid pro quo” for help with an Internal Revenue Service probe of his tax deductions and outreach to the Trump Justice Department to seek the extradition of an accused healthcare fraudster his clients were trying to sue.
Guilfoyle added this note of defiance to her resignation: “I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”
‘Powerful, compelling evidence’
Carbone, a former federal prosecutor, said that the revealed facts call for an investigation into “first and foremost, a bribery or an attempted bribery or bribe receiving scheme.”
He added that the federal bribery statute covers people named to be a public official, including nominees for public office.
Guilfoyle’s repeated text messages expressing anxiety about what Deters put in writing could become “very powerful, compelling evidence” of “consciousness of guilt,” the former prosecutor said.
“It's evidence that the person wants to conduct the transaction in the dark of night, so that the public doesn't see it and that no one else sees it,” Carbone told All Rise news.
When the White House announced the request for Guilfoyle’s resignation, newly minted Press Secretary Zacharia called Guilfoyle a “wonderful asset to the team,” and there have been no whispers of any potential criminal consequence.
Carbone said that an investigation would have been a given during his tenure as a prosecutor.
“In normal times, this is something that would be dealt with quite swiftly,” Carbone said.
The Justice Department declined to comment on whether an investigation has been opened.
“The Department does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations, or the lack thereof,” a press office wrote in an unsigned email.
Asked about the belief that Guilfoyle’s ties to the Trump family will insulate her from a criminal investigation — or make her a candidate for a perspective pardon — Carbone said: “The message that it conveys to the public is that all people are not treated equally or fairly, and that’s, in my judgment, the entire purpose and mission of the Justice Department.”
Carbone’s full interview with All Rise News will be published later today. Visit this page later to watch it in full.
Wow! Great news! There is some justice, at least.
Now after the many other people in the administration that have also engaged in "pay to play" schemes to enrich themselves!
One down, thousands to go!
Wasn’t her claim- this administration’s ability to destroy countries-more damning? I’d think that would have gotten her un-alived by the CIA