Kimberly Guilfoyle is giving up the U.S. ambassador’s Athens residence after the White House asked her to step down, and sources say she is headed back to Florida.
The former Fox News personality and Trump ally agreed Tuesday to resign as U.S. ambassador to Greece once the White House made the request, ending her tenure and her use of Jefferson House, the government-owned estate that comes with the post.
The Post reported that sources expect her return to Florida, though her immediate plans after leaving the Athens compound remain unclear. No replacement has been floated yet. A career diplomat is expected to run the embassy as chargé d’affaires in the interim.
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia put the decision on the record at her first briefing.
"We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign."
President Donald Trump addressed the matter on the South Lawn, making plain he had seen enough in the coverage.
"She will not be there. I didn’t like what I read."
That judgment followed a run of reporting that put her diplomatic role under sustained pressure. The White House move closed the chapter on an ambassadorship that had already drawn intense scrutiny, including earlier coverage when Trump weighed dumping Guilfoyle over pay-to-play claims.
Jefferson House is no ordinary diplomatic billet. The gated compound sits on Panagi Kyriakou Street in Kolonaki, at the base of Lycabettus Hill and a short stroll from Syntagma Square. The neighborhood ranks among Athens’s toniest, with homes averaging roughly $660 per square foot and top properties near $1,000. A three-bedroom, three-bath Kolonaki townhouse of about 2,000 square feet recently listed for $2.17 million.
The estate mixes private family quarters with official reception, dining, and meeting rooms, plus gardens, a pool, and a veranda. Past ambassadors used it for high-profile entertaining. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stopped by in October 2019. Predecessor George Tsunis hosted the Fulbright Commission’s awards ceremony there in June 2022 and threw a reception for Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Guilfoyle put her own stamp on the place. She featured three Françoise Gilot portraits from the State Department art collection and hung oversized self-portraits on the walls. The Daily Mail reported she requested a $58,000 basketball court next to the pool and gardens. In her final days, visitors found her looking past them at a soundless television airing coverage of the expanding scandal.
The resignation request followed a trio of Wall Street Journal investigations. The first, in late September, described her talking up a Greek construction firm while working with its chief lobbyist. A second centered on texts showing she asked Trump donor Eric Deters for $100,000 to pay off her American Express bill before her confirmation hearing. Deters told CBS News she wanted the money wired directly to her AmEx account so the balance would not appear on her financial disclosures. The Journal said it confirmed those texts were authentic.
A third report described private jet trips and five-star European hotel stays paid for by shipping magnate Nikolas Tsakos. Guilfoyle told White House officials the Deters texts were AI-generated and worked the phones with Trump allies at all hours while fighting to keep the job. She denied the allegations outright.
Fox News reported the cascade also included claims she promoted Aktor Group interests, offered official access, and created a hostile workplace for embassy staff, with an Inspector General probe in the mix. Trump added distance when he spoke about her role.
"She wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago. She was doing a good job, but we didn't like what we were reading."
Zacharia still offered a measured send-off, calling her “a wonderful asset to the team” and saying officials wished her well. The sequence fits a pattern already tracked when Guilfoyle resigned the Greece post after the Trump request and issued a defiant denial.
In a goodbye post, Guilfoyle described the ambassadorship as having “been the honor of a lifetime,” denied the claims against her, and pledged to fight to clear her name. She is the first woman to serve as America’s ambassador to Greece.
The Washington Examiner reported her fuller statement Tuesday morning, which kept the focus on loyalty even as the diplomatic role ended.
"While my time as Ambassador may be coming to an end, my commitment to President Trump, the America First movement, and the country I love will never end."
She leaves the Athens post under the weight of unanswered questions the reporting never fully closed: the precise calendar date of the Tuesday agreement, the full text of every Journal finding, and whether any formal ethics finding or disclosure violation will ever be stated as proven. Public appearances in the role had already drawn heat, including when her denim dress at an Athens reception drew criticism from her own supporters.
Earlier controversy also followed claims about sweeping foreign-policy remarks, the kind later aired when a report claimed the Greece ambassador said America can topple any country it wants. None of that altered the final sequence. The White House asked. She agreed. Jefferson House goes with the job.
Accountability still starts at the top. When the reading turns sour, the posting ends, mansion included.
