A registered lobbyist for Greek construction giant Aktor has shadowed U.S. Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle through high-level LNG meetings across southeastern Europe, drawing scrutiny over private interests.
Daily Mail reporting identifies Christos Marafatsos, 39, as the businessman repeatedly appearing beside Guilfoyle as she pushes American liquefied natural gas sales and a “vertical gas corridor” running north from Greece toward Ukraine.
Some foreign officials assumed he was her chief of staff. He is not a diplomat. He is a private businessman and a registered lobbyist for Aktor Group, a Greek firm that has moved into the gas business and partnered with state-backed DEPA in the Atlantic-SEE LNG joint venture.
Federal records cited in the coverage show Marafatsos registered to lobby for Aktor in November, days after Guilfoyle arrived in Athens. Aktor paid him $160,000 through June to help “establish connections” with the Executive Office of the President, the State Department, and the Energy Department. Over nine months he reported more than $440,000 in U.S. lobbying income and added three other Greece-linked businesses to his roster.
Guilfoyle, 57, the former Fox News personality and Trump ally now serving as ambassador, has crisscrossed the region selling multibillion-dollar American energy deals. The stated goal is straightforward: more U.S. LNG for European partners and less reliance on Russian gas. That is national-interest work. The dispute is whether a paid lobbyist’s constant proximity muddies the line.
Attendees described Guilfoyle introducing him with a short line: “This is Christos.” Several people at meetings said he often did not disclose his Aktor relationship. One person familiar with the Bulgaria discussions put it bluntly.
"There is no doubt that this is kind of an official position of the U.S. government,"
In the spring, Guilfoyle traveled to Bulgaria and, per the Journal’s account woven through the coverage, told contacts the Bulgarian government should work with Aktor. Marafatsos sat alongside her in an audience with Bulgaria’s president. The Journal also reported that Aktor’s CEO flew her into the country on a private jet.
A U.S. Embassy official rejected the impropriety frame and said she went to Bulgaria for a clear purpose.
"to advance American interests: increasing sales of US LNG to European partners and decreasing European dependence on Russian gas."
The same official said she remained in “full compliance with State Department guidance.” Her lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said she has worked with companies across the energy industry, not Aktor alone, and that official meetings were arranged through embassy channels rather than through Marafatsos.
Robin Brooks, a 21-year Foreign Service veteran who served as National Security Council director for the Balkans and Central Europe under President Joe Biden, did not buy the shrug.
"absolutely problematic."
Brooks went further on the presence of a registered lobbyist in meetings with foreign officials.
"calls into question whether the meeting is advancing American interests or advancing some sort of private interest."
That is the core tension. American LNG exports strengthen allies and squeeze Moscow’s energy leverage. Taxpayers and lawful U.S. producers benefit when Europe buys American gas. A lobbyist paid to open doors at the White House, State, and Energy while standing at an ambassador’s elbow is a different question, one federal disclosure rules exist to surface, not hide.
Aktor’s lawyers rejected claims that Guilfoyle improperly promoted the company. They said the firm’s role in the vertical corridor began before “any contacts” with the ambassador. Marafatsos himself cast his work as commercial patriotism.
"proud to champion commercial initiatives that advance U.S. interests and create lasting economic opportunity in Greece and Southeastern Europe."
Atlantic-SEE LNG, the Aktor-DEPA venture, has struck agreements or memorandums with companies across Bulgaria, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania. Coverage also describes a proposed $6 billion arrangement in Albania to purchase gas through the company out to 2050, with Guilfoyle’s help in securing it. Access for the relative newcomer has soared.
Then came a stop sign. Ukraine’s state-owned gas company told the Journal that negotiations over future Atlantic-SEE purchases had halted. No injuries, arrests, or enforcement actions appear in the record. The story is influence, optics, and leverage, not a criminal case.
Energy diplomacy sits inside a wider Trump administration effort to use economic and strategic pressure abroad, including Treasury pressure campaigns aimed at hostile regimes and hard-edged bilateral tools when partners drag their feet.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly backed his ambassador, calling Guilfoyle an “incredibly effective advocate for the President's agenda” and saying both he and President Donald Trump “greatly value” her work. That endorsement matters. Cabinet principals do not casually attach their names to embassy conduct they view as freelancing.
Marafatsos is no stranger to the Trump orbit. Maryland-raised, he previously co-founded a Washington-area produce distributor and later chased real estate consulting and an IMAX 3D Acropolis project. He chaired Greek Voices for Trump, helped prepare Guilfoyle for her Senate confirmation, attended her swearing-in, and became a close adviser. He has been photographed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, at the State Department with Guilfoyle, at Mar-a-Lago, and hosting a crypto discussion at CPAC.
President Trump even singled him out at a Greek Independence Day event with a casual line: “Good looking guy, he is.” The remark was social, not a job description. It still showed how visible the businessman had become inside the same rooms.
Earlier this month, a Journal reporter watched Guilfoyle and Marafatsos arrive at an international energy conference in Thessaloniki in a black BMW leading a U.S. convoy. He slipped in another entrance, then stood beside her before she addressed officials from nine countries. She handed him her phone before speaking. Binnall said the dress had no pockets.
Guilfoyle has mixed traditional diplomacy with a high public profile, fashion, art, and an Instagram audience of nearly two million. She presented credentials at the Greek Presidential Palace last November with Marafatsos walking behind. She has been photographed at a Greek basketball match with Olympiacos co-owners Panayiotis and Yorgos Angelopoulos beside her and Marafatsos seated behind. The images feed the same question meeting attendees raised in private: what hat is he wearing in the room?
Foreign policy under this White House has favored speed and leverage, from direct military responses when U.S. forces are threatened to trade measures that force partners to pay attention. Energy sales to Europe fit the same pattern, replace Russian supply, lock in American producers, and treat commercial access as strategy.
Nothing in the available record shows Marafatsos holding a State Department title or embassy payroll slot. The lobbying registrations are public. The payments are public. The denials from the embassy, from Rubio, from Binnall, from Aktor’s lawyers, and from Marafatsos himself are public too. So are Brooks’s objections and the anonymous discomfort from officials and at least one investor who watched the non-disclosures.
That is a transparency fight, not a mystery novel. Conservative voters who want secure borders, honest markets, and clean government also want American ambassadors advancing American exports without leaving foreign counterparts guessing whether the pitch is official policy or a client’s wish list. Federal lobbying law exists so the public can see who pays whom to open which doors. Here, the forms were filed. The proximity is what set teeth on edge.
Guilfoyle’s defenders argue the corridor work and LNG sales serve the president’s agenda and that Aktor’s corridor role predated her contacts. Critics argue an ambassador persistently elevating one foreign firm while its paid lobbyist sits in the room confuses private gain with public mission. The coverage presents both sets of claims. It does not adjudicate them with a prosecutor’s charge sheet.
Strategic competition with adversaries also runs through other theaters, including Iranian strikes that have killed U.S. service members and triggered American retaliation. Cutting Europe’s residual dependence on Russian gas is part of the same hard-power-and-hard-commerce mindset: deny revenue and leverage to regimes that threaten U.S. interests.
Trade pressure has been another favorite instrument, including cases where Washington blindsided a partner with steep new tariffs after high-level meetings. The Greece file is softer power, pipelines, memorandums, and conference stages, but the through line is administration willingness to put commercial muscle behind geopolitics.
The record shows a lobbyist paid six figures by Aktor to reach the White House, State, and Energy. It shows that lobbyist at presidential audiences, conferences, and convoy arrivals with the ambassador. It shows Guilfoyle promoting U.S. LNG and, per the Journal’s account, persistently promoting Aktor. It shows Rubio’s praise, embassy compliance claims, Aktor’s pre-contact defense, and Brooks’s “absolutely problematic” verdict. It shows Ukraine’s gas company pausing talks. It does not show an indictment, a recusal order, or a named inspector-general finding in the material at hand.
Open items remain exactly that, open. Absolute dates for every stop on the Bulgaria and Thessaloniki itinerary are thin in places. The three additional Greece-linked lobbying clients are not named in the package. The Albania proposal’s binding status is unclear. Whether any formal ethics determination exists is unstated. Readers should not confuse unanswered questions with proven misconduct.
American energy dominance is a feature of this presidency, not a bug. Selling LNG into southeastern Europe while peeling countries off Russian supply is the kind of hard-nosed commercial diplomacy voters asked for. Keeping registered lobbyists from looking like shadow chiefs of staff is basic hygiene. Both can be true at once.
Allies should know when they are hearing U.S. policy, and when they are hearing a client pitch. Clear lanes protect the deals worth doing.
