Quite a few people over the years have left Fox News after being accused of sexual misconduct, and quite a few people accused of sexual misconduct have been nominated for positions in the second Trump Administration.
Both things are true of Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Guilfoyle, who, until recently, was the fiancee of Donald Trump, Jr., has been named the next U.S. ambassador to Greece. Best known in recent years as a Trump surrogate, including a stint as the 2020 campaign’s finance chair, Guilfoyle spent many years as a host on Fox News. But that tenure came to an end in the summer of 2018.
And as the New Yorker reported two years later, in a piece called “The Secret History of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Departure from Fox,” a woman who had been Guilfoyle’s assistant at Fox “sent company executives a confidential, forty-two-page draft complaint that accused Guilfoyle of repeated sexual harassment, and demanded monetary relief. ” Therefore, she was “forced out” from Fox that summer.
NEW from @JaneMayerNYer: Kimberly Guilfoyl’s assistant said that she was frequently required to work at her apartment while the Fox News host displayed herself naked, and showed her photographs of the genitalia of men with whom she’d had sexual relations. https://t.co/8jJ3OqB7We
— Michael Luo (@michaelluo) October 1, 2020
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It had been reported before then that Guilfoyle’s departure from the network had not been voluntary, but The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported on specifics, which included the accuser alleging that Guilfoyle subjected her to “degrading, abusive, and sexually inappropriate behavior; among other things, she said that she was frequently required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment while the Fox host displayed herself naked, and was shown photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations.” It was also alleged that Guilfoyle had tried to buy the silence of the accuser.
A couple of years later, more information about her departure came to light, when texts and emails were revealed as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News. That revealed that Rupert Murdoch himself had demanded that Guilfoyle be fired, “for inappropriate behavior.” He mistakenly referred to Guilfoyle as “Kimberley Strassel” — the name of a pro-Trump Wall Street Journal columnist — but since he called her “Don Jr.’s girlfriend,” it’s clear he was referring to Guilfoyle.
Will this history jeopardize Guilfoyle’s nomination? The ambassadorship requires Senate confirmation, so it’s likely that she will at least be asked about such things.
Photo courtesy of Political Tribune media library.
