Former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle’s ouster as U.S. ambassador to Greece creates a new problem for Donald Trump’s White House, according to a former Trump official.
Appearing on MS NOW to discuss press secretary Katie Zacharia’s first day, former Trump administration communications official Sarah Matthews said Guilfoyle, now that the White House has asked her to resign, will be looking for a “soft landing” and possibly a pardon.
Guilfoyle has been accused of pressing a Trump donor to pay off her credit card bill in exchange for access to administration officials, and of accepting lavish travel as ambassador. She has denied wrongdoing through her lawyers. Matthews suggested Guilfoyle’s years in the Trump family’s inner circle give her leverage.
Speaking with MS NOW host Peter Alexander, she said, “The issue that they have now with someone like Kimberly Guilfoyle is yes, they did ask for her resignation, but she is probably going to go kicking and screaming unless I would guess she’s probably lobbying them for a pardon because she did expose herself, it seems like, to some criminal liability here.”
“And so the issue with them and their relationship with her, it’s not like some secretary that you can just oust,” she pointed out. “This is someone who was part of the Trump family and was in the inner circle for years on end. She knows where the bodies are buried, and so they want to make sure that she doesn’t go out singing and, you know, spilling all their secrets. And so I think that they’re going to try to make a deal with her and either find her a soft landing spot.”
Alexander then joked that the ambassadorship “was supposed to be the soft landing spot.”
The laughing Matthews agreed and added, “Exactly. She was given the ambassadorship because they wanted to try to smooth things over with her after the engagement [to Don Jr.] ended.”