EditU.S. ambassador to Athens pushed Balkan LNG deals through favored firm, WSJ reports
A reported remark on Kimberly Guilfoyle pushing Romania’s government to collapse draws scrutiny
A WSJ investigation details how U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle advocated for Balkan countries to purchase U.S. LNG via Greek firm Aktor Group, with Aktor’s lobbyist Christos Marafatsos frequently present at her meetings without always disclosing his role.
Marafatsos, paid over $440K by Greek-connected clients including $160K from Aktor, attended high-level talks where officials mistook him for Guilfoyle’s chief of staff; Aktor’s CEO provided her private jet travel to Bulgaria.
This advocacy secured a $6B, 20-year US LNG deal for Aktor in Albania, projecting €1.8B pretax profit over two decades, though competitors claimed she ignored them in favor of Aktor.
The Wall Street Journal article, published 25 September 2026, centres on that pattern of advocacy across southeastern Europe. Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host and onetime fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., has used her Athens posting to promote a “Vertical Gas Corridor” that would move American liquefied natural gas from Greek terminals north through Bulgaria, Romania and onward toward Ukraine.
Aktor, a Greek construction company that only recently entered the gas business, partnered with state-backed Greek energy firms to position itself as the preferred intermediary. Federal lobbying records show Marafatsos registered for Aktor days after Guilfoyle arrived in Athens. Foreign officials who sat across from the pair later told the Journal they had assumed he was embassy staff. Guilfoyle’s lawyer said her meetings were arranged through official channels and that she worked with companies across the energy sector.
The same investigation contained a single, striking paragraph about Romania. At a March 2026 dinner in Athens attended by Greek and American officials, Guilfoyle reportedly referred to the coming collapse of the Romanian government and told Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou: “We can do this to any country we want. We can do this here too.” Papastavrou answered that the United States could not replace a government chosen by voters. The ambassador’s lawyer disputed the description of the exchange. The source was at least one person present and others who heard the story afterward; no recording has surfaced.
Amazing detail in this @wsj article about Kimberly Guilfoyle, US ambassador to Greece: she told a Greek minister, in a conversation about the collapse of the Romanian government,“We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here."https://t.co/2HFqNlhEDw
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) September 26, 2026
Ilie Bolojan’s government, in office since June 2025, fell on 5 May 2026 after PSD withdrew from the coalition and joined AUR in a no-confidence motion that passed 281–4. In the months before the vote, Bolojan declined to convert a November 2025 memorandum—signed by Transgaz and Nova Power & Gas with Atlantic-SEE LNG for up to 1.4 million tonnes of US gas a year—into a binding contract at prices above the market. Then-Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan had written to both the president and the prime minister in January seeking an explicit mandate for such a deal. Romania produces its own gas and expects large additional volumes from the Neptun Deep project beginning in 2027.
On 31 March 2026, while in Bucharest for an Economist energy conference, Guilfoyle dined at the Isoletta restaurant with PSD president Sorin Grindeanu, Ivan and presidential adviser Florin Vlădică. Photographs and video of the gathering later circulated.
Video shows Kimberly Guilfoyle, US ambassador to Greece and former fiancee of Trump Jr. meeting privately with the leaders of Romania's Social Democratic Party on March 31st, in a Bucharest hotel.
Just 6 Days later, the Social Democrats allied with the pro-Russian extremists… https://t.co/fXc9O2kjHd pic.twitter.com/0wZ9ftIvEo
— Daractenus (@Daractenus) September 27, 2026
Grindeanu confirmed the meeting concerned Romania’s potential transit role on the corridor and dismissed any suggestion that government change was discussed as “pure fabrication.” AUR senator Petrișor Peiu, who helped draft the censure text, said Guilfoyle “did not participate with a single idea” and was not among the 281 lawmakers who voted the government out.
Romanian outlets immediately linked the Athens remark, the unsigned LNG memorandum, the Bucharest dinner and the May vote. Some described the sequence as evidence of commercial pressure; others, including Evenimentul Zilei, accused certain publications of stretching a brief, anonymously sourced paragraph in a longer conflict-of-interest story.
No official documents have been produced showing Washington directed the parliamentary motion. What the public record contains is a lobbyist who sat beside an ambassador, a Greek company that won large contracts, a memorandum that never became a sale, a disputed dinner comment, a photographed meal with opposition leaders, and a domestic no-confidence vote. The Journal itself did not claim the United States toppled Bolojan; it reported what one ambassador allegedly said while she was selling American gas through a favored intermediary.
A diplomat in name only? Questioning the appointment of the U.S. new Ambassador to Athens
This artice draws on reporting by WSJ
Caption: U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle amid embassy staff [U.S. Embassy in Athens on X]
Updated: September 28, 2026 - 05:47
