GEOPOLITICA
“We can do this to any country” — what the Wall Street Journal reported about the US ambassador to Greece and the fall of Romania's Bolojan government, and why it surfaced now
The Wall Street Journal reported on 25 September 2026 that the US ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, said in March, at a dinner in Athens, about Romania's Bolojan government: “We can do this to any country we want.”
This analysis argues that the remark, if it was made, is the boast of an interested diplomat, not proof of a mechanism. The Bolojan government fell to a PSD–AUR no-confidence motion backed by 281 lawmakers, and the thread linking Athens to Bucharest is commercial and separately documented: a US liquefied gas contract that Bucharest did not sign. The timing belongs to an American newsroom, but the effect lands on Romania's calendar, five days before the confidence vote on the Mureșan government.
What the Wall Street Journal wrote, and what it did not
The original article, “The Mystery Man Shadowing Kimberly Guilfoyle as She Pushes Deals Across Europe”, is not about Romania. Its subject is Christos Marafatsos, a lobbyist paid by the Greek group Aktor who turned up at so many of the ambassador's official meetings that some foreign officials took him for her chief of staff. Romania takes up one paragraph.
That paragraph, as relayed by CursDeGuvernare and the Greek press, says that in March, at a dinner in Athens with Greek and American officials, Guilfoyle got into a dispute with Greece's minister of environment and energy, Stavros Papastavrou. Referring to the imminent collapse of the Romanian government, she reportedly told those present: “We can do this to any country we want. We can do it here too.” Papastavrou reportedly replied that the US cannot replace a government elected by its citizens.
The source is at least one person present at the dinner, not a document or a recording. The ambassador's lawyer, Jesse Binnall, disputed the account of the conversation; according to reports in Europost, her defence says the talks were solely about energy security. The WSJ does not claim that the US toppled the Romanian government; it reports that the ambassador allegedly said so.
Who Kimberly Guilfoyle is
Kimberly Guilfoyle was born on 9 March 1969 in San Francisco, the daughter of a mother from Puerto Rico and a father who emigrated from Ireland. She graduated in law from the University of San Francisco in 1994 and worked as a deputy prosecutor in Los Angeles and San Francisco. From 2001 to 2006 she was married to Gavin Newsom, who became mayor of San Francisco in 2004 and is now governor of California.
From 2006 to 2018 she was a Fox News host, including on “The Five”. She left in July 2018 during an internal investigation into harassment allegations made by a former assistant; the allegations, reported by The New Yorker, were denied by her. In 2020 she chaired the Trump campaign's fundraising committee, and on 6 January 2021 she spoke at the Ellipse rally that preceded the assault on the Capitol.
From 2018 she was the partner of Donald Trump Jr., to whom she became engaged at the end of 2020; the relationship ended in late 2024. On 10 December 2024 Donald Trump nominated her as ambassador to Greece. The Senate confirmed her on 18 September 2025 by 51 votes to 47, and on 4 November 2025 she presented her credentials to President Konstantinos Tasoulas. She is the first woman to serve as US ambassador in Athens.
Her relationship with the Greek government got off on the wrong foot. In 2015, on Fox News, after the Greek referendum, Guilfoyle had said that “nobody likes the freeloaders” and that “it doesn't matter if you make excellent yogurt”. When she was nominated, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis replied that the ambassador “will come to the Greece of 2025, not of 2015”, according to The TOC. In Athens she made American liquefied gas the main theme of her tenure.
The man beside her: Christos Marafatsos and the Aktor group
Christos Marafatsos is 39, grew up in Maryland and, according to the WSJ as cited by Reporter.gr, ran a food distribution company near Washington and worked in real estate consulting. He has no background in diplomacy or energy. The Greek press reports that he led the “Greek Voices for Trump” group and helped Guilfoyle prepare for her Senate hearing.
On 5 November 2025 he registered as a lobbyist for Aktor. Federal records show $160,000 received from Aktor through June 2026 for building ties with the White House, the State Department and the Energy Department, and more than $440,000 over nine months from four clients with Greek connections. Foreign officials said he was introduced to them only as “Αυτός είναι ο Χρήστος” — “This is Christos”.
Aktor, run by Alexandros Exarchou, set up Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade in November 2025 together with the state company DEPA, with 60% held by Aktor and 40% by DEPA. The company buys liquefied gas from the American firm Venture Global under a 20-year contract starting in 2030 and resells it northwards along the Vertical Corridor: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine. According to the WSJ, in spring 2026 Guilfoyle flew to Bulgaria on the private jet of Aktor's chief executive.
Robin Brooks, a former Balkans director at the National Security Council, called the arrangement “absolutely problematic”. Her lawyer, Binnall, says the ambassador “has worked with companies across the energy sector”; the State Department says she promotes American gas sales and lower dependence on Russian gas; and Secretary of State Marco Rubio called her an “extremely effective” advocate of the president's agenda. Aktor denies any improper promotion.
The Romanian thread: a memorandum, a missed deadline and a meal at Isoletta
The link to Bucharest has a verifiable timeline. On 5–7 November 2025, at the P-TEC conference in Athens, Transgaz and Nova Power & Gas signed a memorandum with Atlantic-SEE LNG for up to 1.4 million tonnes of liquefied gas a year, roughly 1.9 billion cubic metres. The memorandum had three months to become a commercial contract, according to Cotidianul. The deadline passed in early February 2026 without a contract.
On 7 February, energy minister Bogdan Ivan (PSD) asked in writing for a government strategy on gas agreements with the US. Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan did not act on the consortium's requests to buy American gas above the market price, G4Media reports, based on the WSJ account. The economic case for refusing is simple: Romania produces gas, and Neptun Deep will add about 8 billion cubic metres a year at plateau, with first gas in 2027, according to OMV Petrom and Romgaz.
On 31 March, Guilfoyle ate at the Isoletta restaurant in Bucharest with PSD leader Sorin Grindeanu, minister Ivan and presidential adviser Florin Vlădică; photographs were published by Presa Liberă. Grindeanu confirms the meeting and its subject: “The vertical gas corridor, a strategic energy route in which Romania can play an important transit role.” The rest, he says, is “pure fabrication”. The Athens dinner also took place in March; reports do not say whether before or after Isoletta.
The mechanism: from the Athens dinner to the 5 May motion
The causal chain the remark implies has four links: the commercial interest (an unsigned LNG contract), diplomatic pressure (an ambassador openly promoting one company), the domestic political actor (PSD, a coalition partner at odds with the prime minister) and the formal act (the motion). The first two and the last are documented. The third link — that PSD acted at Washington's request or with its backing — has no public evidence.
The formal act is the best documented. The motion “STOP the ‘Bolojan Plan’”, initiated by PSD and AUR and signed by 253 lawmakers, was filed on 28 April and passed on 5 May 2026 with 281 votes in favour and 4 against, according to TVR Info. Its title spoke of the economy, impoverishment and the “fraudulent sale of state assets”, not of gas. The PSD–Bolojan conflict over austerity and state companies had been public for months before March.
Political scientist Marius Ghincea of ETH Zürich told HotNews that the report seems to confirm rumours in Bucharest: the US may have played a role by legitimising or supporting the Social Democrats' move. The wording is careful and precise: legitimisation, not command.
The counter-hypothesis: Bolojan's fall is explained without Washington
The competing hypothesis is more economical. PSD had enough domestic reasons to leave government: its public conflict with the prime minister over austerity, budget cuts and the reform of state companies. AUR, the second sponsor, needed no encouragement to vote against a PNL prime minister. A motion carried by 281 votes is not explained by a meal at Isoletta.
On this reading, the Athens remark is an ambassador claiming credit for a predictable outcome to gain leverage in a negotiation with another government, the Greek one. She reportedly said it to the very minister she was arguing with, and the addition “we can do it here too” sounds like pressure on Athens, not a report on Bucharest. Weighing the two hypotheses, the public evidence supports the boast better than the mechanism: documented commercial pressure, unproven political influence.
Why it surfaced now
There is no new statement from the ambassador. What appeared now is the WSJ investigation, built around Marafatsos's lobbying disclosures, which cover payments through June and became public over the summer. The subject is an American one: a politically appointed ambassador, the former fiancée of the president's son, promoting a foreign company with its lobbyist at her side. The timing follows the newsroom's cycle, and Romania is a colourful detail in the story.
Who recounted the dinner is a separate question. Papastavrou comes out of the account as the defender of sovereignty, which makes a Greek source plausible. That is not confirmed, and the source could just as well be an American participant.
The effect, by contrast, lands on Romania's calendar. The confidence vote on the Mureșan government is scheduled for Wednesday, 30 September, at 13:00. His programme reassesses the Vertical Corridor on the logic that “we must transit the gas through this corridor and collect the tariffs”, according to Antena 3: transit, not purchase. The revelation puts PSD and AUR on the defensive in exactly the week their votes matter.
The gas market completes the picture. In early September Transgaz signed, in Greece, the extension of the Vertical Corridor, which Serbia and North Macedonia have joined. On 23 September Moldova announced it had contracted gas from Neptun Deep at a negotiated discount, and ExxonMobil, which exited Neptun Deep, starts drilling in the Ionian Sea in the first months of 2027. Romanian gas competes directly with the LNG that Atlantic-SEE wants to sell northwards.
What Greece says
By the evening of 26 September, neither the Mitsotakis government, nor Papastavrou, nor the opposition parties had commented officially on the report. The Greek press ran it as a “political earthquake” and a “political Richter”. Pentapostagma compared the remark to the era of ambassador John Peurifoy, who in the early 1950s openly intervened in the formation of governments in Athens. The comparison matters: in Greece, American meddling in government is a historical wound, not a figure of speech.
For the Greek government, silence has a logic. Athens wants to become the gateway for American gas into Central and Eastern Europe, and DEPA, the state company, holds 40% of Atlantic-SEE. Confirming the remark would mean open conflict with the embassy over the very project Greece cares about most, with parliamentary elections due by 2027 at the latest.
Reactions in Romania
Sorin Grindeanu confirmed the discussion about the Vertical Corridor and dismissed the rest as “pure fabrication”. George Simion said he had not held “such discussions” and was “sure it is an invented expression or one taken out of context”, adding that he considers himself a “good friend” of the ambassador. USR president Dominic Fritz publicly asked Grindeanu and Simion to say whether they had acted “on foreign orders”.
USR deputy Alexandru Dimitriu announced criminal complaints for treason against Grindeanu, Simion and Ivan, according to Mediafax. He claims Ivan even sought the involvement of the SRI intelligence service to close the contract; the claim is his and is not, so far, backed by public documents. Neither the Foreign Ministry nor the US Embassy in Bucharest had commented at the time of writing.
Scenarios
Dominant scenario — a conflict-of-interest scandal without proof of the mechanism. The story remains an American one about Guilfoyle and Aktor. In Romania it is used in the confidence debate and in criminal complaints that lead to no charges. No second source for the remark emerges.
Escalation scenario. Papastavrou or another participant publicly confirms the exchange, or a second source appears. The remark becomes a diplomatic incident in Athens, the State Department is forced to distance itself, and the ambassador's tenure is curtailed or ended.
Unlikely scenario. Documents or testimony show direct American involvement in PSD's decision to launch the motion. That would change the nature of the case, but nothing public today points in that direction.
Testable predictions
| Prediction | Horizon | Probability | How to check | Verification source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kimberly Guilfoyle is still US ambassador to Greece | on 31.12.2026 | 75–90% | The embassy website lists her as the serving ambassador | gr.usembassy.gov |
| The Greek government or Stavros Papastavrou publicly confirms the dinner exchange | by 31.10.2026 | 10–25% | A statement attributed by name, on the record | ypen.gov.gr, primeminister.gr |
| A second major outlet confirms the remark from its own sources | by 31.12.2026 | 20–35% | An article with a source independent of the WSJ's | Reuters, AP, Politico, Kathimerini |
| Members of Congress formally request an inquiry into the ambassador's relationship with Aktor | by 31.12.2026 | 40–55% | A public letter to the State Department or its inspector general | foreign.senate.gov, oig.state.gov |
| A Romanian company signs a firm LNG purchase contract with Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade | by 31.03.2027 | 10–25% | A company press release or stock-exchange filing | transgaz.ro, bvb.ro |
Method, definitions and figures
Sources. The WSJ article of 25 September 2026 is behind a paywall; the dinner quotes and the details about Marafatsos come from the reports that reproduce it (CursDeGuvernare, G4Media, HotNews, Reporter.gr, Europost), which agree with each other. We did not have access to the full text.
Conversion. 1.4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas correspond to roughly 1.9 billion cubic metres of gas after regasification, using the usual factor of about 1,360 cubic metres per tonne; the figure is an order of magnitude, not a contractual one.
Vertical Corridor. The term refers to the interconnection of gas transmission networks along the Greece–Bulgaria–Romania–Hungary–Slovakia–Moldova–Ukraine axis, which lets liquefied gas unloaded in Greek ports travel north. Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade is a trader on this route, not the pipeline operator.
Probabilities. The bands in the table are editorial estimates in ranges of at least ten percentage points, not calibrated against a track record; they indicate the order of magnitude of confidence, not a measured frequency.
Limits of this analysis
The analysis relies on press reports from 25–26 September 2026 about a paywalled article and on public sources about the May motion. The dinner remark, in its published form, has a single anonymous source and is disputed by the ambassador's lawyer. We do not know what was discussed at Isoletta beyond what Grindeanu confirmed, nor the exact order of the two March meetings.
The diagnosis would be invalidated by documents or named testimony showing that Washington requested or guaranteed the motion, or, in the other direction, by a named denial from the Greek participants at the dinner. The natural point for reassessment is after the 30 September confidence vote and at the first official reaction from the government in Athens.
