Kimberly Guilfoyle associate says when she asked him for $100K, it was

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.

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

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

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."

"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."