Kimberly Guilfoyle is being sued for defamation by Eric Deters, the Trump donor who says she asked him to pay off her $100,000 American Express bill, just days after Donald Trump told reporters she “wasn’t a member of my family.”
Deters filed the lawsuit Thursday, October 15, in Kentucky state court. It names Guilfoyle and her attorneys, Jesse Binnall and David M. Schwartz, and accuses all three of defamation and false light invasion of privacy. False light is a legal claim that someone publicly painted you in a misleading way that would offend a reasonable person. Deters also filed a breach of contract claim against Guilfoyle alone. He is seeking unspecified damages.
The suit lands two days after Guilfoyle resigned as U.S. ambassador to Greece. On Tuesday, October 13, new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia announced during her first briefing that the administration had asked Guilfoyle to step down. Less than two hours later, Guilfoyle confirmed on X that she was leaving.
“Serving as the United States Ambassador to Greece has been the honor of a lifetime,” she wrote, adding that she would “vigorously defend” herself against the allegations.
Trump made a point of putting distance between himself and his son’s former fiancée. Asked about Kimberly Guilfoyle on Tuesday, he told reporters, “No, she wasn’t a member of my family.”
That is a cold line for a woman who spent six years with Donald Trump Jr. and spoke at two Republican National Conventions on his father’s behalf.
The scandal around Kimberly Guilfoyle broke open with a Wall Street Journal report on October 7. According to the Journal, Guilfoyle messaged Deters on Signal in July 2025, days before her Senate confirmation hearing, asking him to wire $100,000 straight to her American Express account. Deters says the request came with a promise of access to powerful people in the administration. He never sent the money.
When the Journal reached out for comment, Guilfoyle and her lawyers said the messages were fake and called Deters a “known blackmailer.” Those statements are the core of his lawsuit.
“The texts are not fake,” the complaint states. Deters also wrote, “I have never been accused of or charged with blackmail.” Guilfoyle’s lawyers have called the lawsuit frivolous.
The breach of contract claim ties back to Deters’ longtime legal work. The former Northern Kentucky lawyer has spent years representing former patients of Abubakar Atiq Durrani, a spine surgeon accused of performing unnecessary operations who fled to Pakistan in 2013 after being indicted on federal fraud charges. Deters alleges Guilfoyle broke an agreement to help with efforts on behalf of those patients. He also said he would drop the entire lawsuit if Trump extradited Durrani and had him investigated.
Deters is promising more. In a Facebook video Thursday, he held up a copy of the lawsuit and claimed it “might bring down the entire Trump administration” and could “end the JD Vance/Marco Rubio ticket.” He said he would release a 16 minute phone recording by the end of Friday, describing it as “the most explosive, most devastating information about Kimberly Guilfoyle to date.” The recording has not been made public, and its contents have not been verified.
Deters is not the only one who says Guilfoyle is holding damaging material. The Daily Mail, citing anonymous insiders, reported this week that she has kept a secret “burn book” documenting Trump family secrets from her years inside their circle. Sources reportedly nicknamed it “The Devil Wears MAGA,” and one insider told the outlet that “Kimberly knows where the bodies are buried.” No one has produced the book, and Guilfoyle has not addressed the report. The New York Post reported that Trump allies believe her hope for a pardon will keep her from lashing out.
Her problems also reach beyond Deters. The State Department’s inspector general, the agency’s internal watchdog, is looking into the allegations against her, which include reports in the Journal and the Daily Mail about her treatment of embassy staff and her ties to wealthy Greek businessmen who paid for luxury travel. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, has called for an investigation.
Kimberly Guilfoyle has not commented on the lawsuit. As of Tuesday, the White House had not named a replacement for her in Athens.
