Guilfoyle associate says when she asked him for $100K, it was "quid pro quo"

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.

In an interview with CBS News, Deters said Guilfoyle should "lose her ambassadorship" over her alleged behavior, after texts between the two of them from last July were published in the Wall Street Journal .

"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."

Deters said he made up an "excuse" that his wife wouldn't go along with 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.

"It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express that's all that will show," Guilfoyle wrote to Deters on July 3, according to screen shots of texts provided to CBS News. "I have been officially announced honey please I need you to get this done for me today," she wrote, punctuating the message with a prayer-hands emoji. Her confirmation hearing took place on July 9.

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.

Deters, a longtime Trump supporter, is a retired lawyer and businessman from Kentucky who was sanctioned by the Ohio Supreme Court in 2021 for engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. He has also run unsuccessfully for Kentucky governor and for Rep. Thomas Massie's U.S. House seat.

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.

"I sent Susie Wiles, Don Jr.