Guilfoyle associate says when she asked him for $100K, it was “quid pro quo”

Businessman Eric Deters said he has “no doubt it was pay to play,” claiming Kimberly Guilfoyle, now the U.S. ambassador to Greece and ex-fiancee of Donald Trump Jr., asked him to wire $100,000 to pay her American Express bill in exchange for her help with the Trump administration ahead of Guilfoyle’s Senate confirmation hearing.   

In an interview with CBS News, Deters said Guilfoyle should “lose her ambassadorship” over her alleged behavior, after texts between the two of them from last July were published in the Wall Street Journal. 

“It was quid pro quo,” Deters told CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang Thursday.

Deters said he never gave her the money.  

“Unfortunately for Kimberly Guilfoyle, at that time, at that moment in time, I didn’t have $100,000 to spare to give to Kimberly Guilfoyle, or I actually would have been a dumbass enough to do it.” 

Deters said he made up an “excuse” that his wife wouldn’t go along with it. 

White House officials were told that the text messages between Guilfoyle and Deters were authentic, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. Some Trump aides expressed displeasure about Guilfoyle’s actions, they said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported this week that Guilfoyle allegedly reached out to Deters days before her congressional hearing to become a U.S. ambassador, saying she needed $100,000 to pay off her American Express credit debt in a way that wouldn’t be publicly visible. 

“It won’t show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express that’s all that will show,” Guilfoyle wrote to Deters on July 3, according to screen shots of texts provided to CBS News. “I have been officially announced honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” she wrote, punctuating the message with a prayer-hands emoji. Her confirmation hearing took place on July 9. 

She sent him “American Express Instructions” in a PDF document. 

CBS News has reviewed the texts, which were provided by Deters as part of a 292-page file that included dozens of pages of grievances against Trump world figures, communications with Guilfoyle and others, photos of Deters with Guilfoyle, President Trump, Eric Trump and Trump Jr., and a lengthy excerpt of a book Deters has written. 

CBS News has reached out to spokespeople for the State Department and the White House, as well as Guilfoyle. 

Deters, a longtime Trump supporter, is a retired lawyer and businessman from Kentucky who was sanctioned by the Ohio Supreme Court in 2021 for engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. He has also run unsuccessfully for Kentucky governor and for Rep. Thomas Massie’s U.S. House seat.

For years, Deters has been trying to attract media attention and political support for a push to extradite orthopedic spine surgeon Dr. Abubakar Durrani. The government believes Durrani fled the country while he was awaiting trial for healthcare fraud charges. He was accused of billing Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies millions of dollars for unnecessary spinal surgeries that were potentially harmful to patients. Today, Deters said he feels slighted that he never received support for his push to have Durrani extradited to the U.S. from influential Trump world figures.

“I sent Susie Wiles, Don Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle an email, and I told them, I said, ‘You got until 5 o’clock on Monday to help me out with the Durrani victims,'” he said. “They didn’t respond. And I told them, ‘If you don’t, I’m going to go to the media and try to get the media’s help because you’re not helping.’ So I gave them one last shot, and they ignored me.”

In the text messages reviewed by CBS News, Deters, who said he also represents hundreds of Durrani’s former patients, may have believed he could benefit from Durrani’s extradition to the U.S. He wrote to Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle’s podcast producer, Drew Lynch, and suggested, “If anyone in Don Jr or your world has an interest in listening to a pitch on how lots of money could be made for a little money in this Durrani matter let me know.”

Deters, who no longer practices law, once stood to gain financially if he were able to successfully sue Durrani.

Just before he took office in 2025 and soon after Guilfoyle and Trump Jr. broke off their engagement, Mr. Trump announced he planned to nominate Guilfoyle to be U.S. ambassador to Greece. But Deters said her influence has waned since her relationship with Trump Jr. ended.

“There was no question that she would do anything for me,” Deters said. “The problem was, she was on the outs of the Trump world.” 

Deters claimed Guilfoyle knew there was something wrong about asking for the payment. 

“She knew there was something wrong about it because she kept getting mad at me,” Deters said. “I mean, I’m naive, I’m putting stuff in writing, sending it to her. She’s getting mad. She wants me to use Signal. I didn’t know what Signal was.”

In late June 2025, she texted, “Eric, I really wish you would stop papering these things. It’s really dangerous and not helpful to you and not helpful to you or me while you could simply just call me on Signal.” Deters had just sent her a memo to complain that she had not delivered on things that he had asked of her, including getting him booked on Tucker Carlson’s podcast. 

“I generously offered you $1 million dollars when Durrani settles if you got me on Tucker,” he wrote. He also complained that he had prepared a “concise summary” for then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, but “I have not received nothing concrete.”

Deters also sought a meeting with then-IRS Commissioner Billy Long about a tax issue, and he wanted Guilfoyle to send the lyrics to a song he had written to Kid Rock.

Deters said in the memo, “I am not naive or a sucker. I need results. No results. No need for me to pay.”

He prodded her over text soon afterward: “As of this moment, I bet there have been no emails AND phone calls by you to Wells [Tucker Carlson’s producer], Bondi, Long.”

Guilfoyle said his accusation was “completely false” and sent as proof the PDF of a letter in which she congratulated Long on his confirmation and asked him to give his attention to Deters’ tax issue.  

Deters claimed he has paid Guilfoyle and members of the Trump family in the past. 

“I paid her a total of $300,000,” he said. “Don, Jr. $200,000 for two appearances. Eric Trump for $100,000, $125,000 for President Trump’s PAC, $100,000 to go to Kentucky Derby with Trump. So, I paid a lot of money to Trump World,” he said, adding that he never owed money to Guilfoyle or anyone else around Mr. Trump. 

According to the documents he shared with CBS News, he says he paid Guilfoyle a total of $300,000 for appearance fees. And he said his promise of further payments to Guilfoyle and Lynch was to be for their services as consultants. 

The Trump administration’s response so far

In Greece, where Guilfoyle greeted his plane earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio chastised reporters for asking about the matter. 

“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel,” he said. “It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things.”

Rubio also declined to comment because the story had only “literally posted a few hours ago,” telling reporters that “we don’t conduct these things in a press conference, on a tarmac, in a foreign country.” As Rubio departed Greece, Guilfoyle was present, but off to the side.

CBS News on Thursday asked Vice President JD Vance about the propriety of a government official asking someone to pay off their debt. 

CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs asked: “Do you have any reaction to a U.S. government official, in this case a U.S. ambassador, asking someone to pay off debt in exchange to access to other government officials?”

“With that hypothetical, obviously I don’t love that, but I, you know, I don’t know exactly who you’re talking about. I don’t know the full details,” Vance responded. 

Deters insisted his relationship with Guilfoyle was purely political.

“Kimberly Guilfoyle and I have absolutely zero personal relationship, nada,” he told CBS News. 

But Deters is now determined to share his story. He said he wants to draw attention to Dr. Durrani’s victims. And he wants Guilfoyle out of her post as U.S. ambassador. 

“I’m a tough hombre,” Deters said. “I’m going to get to take Kimberly Guilfoyle’s deposition.”