Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the Senate Majority Whip, on Sunday expressed concern about the recent reporting on U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle and her finances.
Page F117From§Eachthe morning edition — 12 October 2026
THE LEDGER
Ambassador accused of demanding $100,000 payoff gets 'very troubling' from the one Republican who'll say anything.
As it ran on the front
Eric Deters, a lawyer, a former Kentucky congressional candidate, and a donor to the Trump campaign, told ABC's Good Morning America on October 8th that Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle asked him to pay off a $100,000 American Express bill in exchange for access to administration officials. He put a name, a sum, and a word to it: quid pro quo.
That same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked to answer for it twice — once in an exchange The Hill recorded, once in an exchange the Guardian recorded. Both times he brushed the question off. In the two instances the receipts show him asked, he did not answer either one.…
…(cont) Three days pass. On October 11th a senior U.S. official tells the Guardian that Trump and Rubio are "extremely pissed off" by Guilfoyle's conduct and will decide this week, after Monday's holiday, what to do about her.
So: three days between a donor naming a figure on the record and the first member of his own party willing to put a word on it in public. In those three days the number did not move. It is still $100,000. It is still one ambassador, one bill, one offer of access. What moved was who would say anything about it at all — from a secretary who declined the question twice to a whip who upgraded silence to "troubling" without committing the department to a single step.
Reconcile the file the way you'd reconcile a drawer, hon: a specific person names a specific sum on the record, the man whose department employs her takes the question twice and hands it back both times, and the senator who finally speaks does so in the conditional tense — "I'm sure there's going to be" — a sentence that sounds like movement and commits to none.
“Six figures changes hands — or was supposed to — for a seat at the table, and the whole response from the party of law and order is one senator saying "troubling" on a Sunday show and going home. That's not oversight, that's a eulogy nobody signed. Nobody's resigned, nobody's fired, nobody's even investigated yet — the only thing that's happened in three days is the adjective got stronger while the actual verb stayed home.”
“Look, nobody's been found guilty of anything here — one donor's word isn't a verdict, and Secretary Rubio declining to litigate press allegations on the fly is just good practice, that's just — discipline, that's what that is. And Senator Barrasso calling it "troubling" is exactly the kind of robust Senate oversight the Founders — okay, saying a word on television isn't oversight, forget I said Founders, I meant process. There's a process. I assume.”
The receipts
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said on Sunday he believes U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle will be investigated following a series of reports alleging ethics violations.
A former Republican congressional candidate and donor to President Donald Trump's campaign went on the record Thursday to level allegations of corruption against Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Trump-appointed US Ambassador to Greece. Appearing on ABC News' "Good Morning America," Eric Deters said that Guilfoyle offered him access to top…
Kimberly Guilfoyle faces mounting allegations in Greece as JD Vance and Marco Rubio weigh in on the embattled ambassador's growing controversies.
Senior official says president and US secretary of state are ‘extremely pissed off’ by conduct of US envoy to Greece Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, are considering firing US ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after a series of reports alleging she has engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and…
· Marco Rubio brushes off questions about Kimberly Guilfoyle pressing donor to pay credit card from the morgue, 8 Oct 2026
· Trump donor accuses ‘grifter’ Kimberly Guilfoyle of $100,00 quid pro quo from the morgue, 8 Oct 2026
· Rubio refuses to comment on Guilfoyle allegations from the morgue, 8 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.