Republican Business As Usual, Greek Style

      Even considering how much the swamp has grown under Trump (it's now the size of the Gulf of Mexico), Kimberly Guilfoyle's brazen corruption and grifting still manages to amaze us. This fall, we'd read stories about Guilfoyle's people demanding cases of high-end champagne, at Guilfoyle's drinking parties that lasted until past four in the morning, at using helicopters and private jets (that she boasted about) to fly to swanky resorts and cozying up to a lobbyist for a Greek company. The Wall Street Journal delivered the coup de grace in naming two wealthy Greek businessmen with whom Guilfoyle had been canoodling.

     And then came Eric Deters.

     Deters, a smalltime right wing operator who's been trying to weasel his way into the Trump administration (One supposes he didn't bribe Trump sufficiently), was hit up for $100,000 by Guilfoyle. That was the outstanding balance on her American Express credit card and Guilfoyle told Deters to send the money directly to her AmEx account so as not to leave a paper trail. She also told him, in writing, to stop putting things in writing.

      "Honey please I need you to get this done for me today," she wrote in advance of her confirmation hearings. It would have been a quid pro quo arrangement because she promised him the access to the Trump administration for which he's been thirsting for years. I guess Guilfoyle overplayed her hand and overestimated her importance because the only reason she was nominated to the post of our ambassador to Greece was because Donnie Dumbo Junior had just broken up with her and they wanted her out of the country immediately. Senate Republicans, as always, were happy to oblige.

     The day after the story with Deters broke, Deters himself went public and confirmed the WSJ's story, basically calling her every name in the book. In reality, Deters never made the payment and only went public because Guilfoyle didn't deliver the access to the White House that she'd promised (although it's unclear how Deters thought she'd delivered without the bribe).

     Guilfolye's corruption and cartoonish elitism was such that Trump was forced to fire her yesterday (the official narrative is that she resigned, although when an administration demands your resignation, it still means you're shitcanned. whichever way you cut it).

     But there's a rule in Trump's Washington DC- Don't embarrass the boss and don't get caught. Guilfoyle, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, apparently never learned that rule. Just like she never learned the rule that engagements are typically mutual and consensual and that you can't manufacture them by buying your own engagement ring and making the wedding announcement yourself.