A day after President Donald Trump fired his ambassador to Greece amid a flurry of ethics complaints, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a message to all State Department employees reminding them to “avoid conflicts of interest.”
“It is my expectation that every member of our team must act with uncompromising personal and professional integrity,” wrote Rubio in a memo obtained by The Washington Post. “I expect employees to avoid conflicts of interest in our work, to act impartially, and to avoid using our public offices for private gain.”
Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was once the fiancée of Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., was accused of a variety of ethical violations, including asking a political donor for $100,000 to pay her personal American Express bill, according to a series of reports in the Wall Street Journal.
Rubio was forced to grapple with the ballooning ethics scandal during a diplomatic trip to Greece earlier this month, in which he appeared annoyed by questions from reporters about her actions.
Guilfoyle has denied wrongdoing, but the State Department’s Office of Inspector General launched an investigation into her conduct, said a U.S. official who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
A State Department official told The Post that Rubio’s memo “had been in the works for weeks.”
Trump distanced himself from Guilfoyle, telling reporters Tuesday he fired her because he didn’t like what he read about her in the media.
“She wasn’t a member of my family. She I guess dated my son a long time ago,” he said. The couple announced their split in December 2024. “She went to Greece, she was doing a good job, but we didn’t like what we were reading,” he said.
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