President Donald Trump was reportedly awaiting the resignation of Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle shortly before she tendered it. The U.S. diplomat representing American interests in Greece had been accused of abusing her office to make money — and one of her accusers celebrated her downfall while vowing to hold her accountable in the courts if necessary.

Eric Deters laid out his position in an interview with conservative pundit Sam Stein.

"My first response when asked that today is going to be: It's a great day for American diplomacy," Deters said. "I'm glad. I'm glad she's gone. Kimberly Guilfoyle is a wicked, evil, manipulative grifter. And the reports that were coming out of Greece weren't good. But I'll take full credit for the resignation, because I think she would have survived everything in Greece. They could have told her to cut it out. It was over there in Greece, and she would have survived that."

He added, "What she could not survive was the black-and-white text messages, the embarrassment, the humiliation of her asking me for $100,000 to pay off her Amex, and at the same time wanting to keep it a secret and cover it up."

Deters also announced his intention to pursue legal action. "I'm going to sue her for defamation this week," he said. "I have to, because she's concocted this thing that, oh, this was for money that I owed her for prior work. And that's not true, and she knows it. She started out telling the Wall Street Journal that the messages were fake and [unclear: "I didn't fly"]. Then she said I was a known blackmailer, whatever the hell that freaking means."

"So I'm going to be really aggressive against her, and I'm suing her for defamation right here in good old Kentucky, near Cincinnati, which means I will get to take her deposition, and it'll be fun," he concluded.

Deters said he looks forward to questioning Guilfoyle under oath himself, and explained why he views litigation as a powerful tool.

"I'm looking forward to that day," Deters told Stein. "You have to understand something about a lawsuit. They're very dangerous, because a lawsuit allows you to issue subpoenas. A lawsuit allows you to request documents. A lawsuit allows you to take depositions under oath, which means I can depose everyone on her staff. I can subpoena documents."

The tools Deters described — subpoenas, document requests, and depositions under oath — are standard features of American civil litigation, which is why he called lawsuits "dangerous." If he files on the timetable he promised, a dispute that has so far played out through press reporting and dueling public statements would move into a sworn, on-the-record process, where Guilfoyle's reported to the Wall Street Journal — that the messages were fake, or tied to money owed for prior work — would be answered under oath in a forum he described as his home turf near Cincinnati.

Deters, who accused Guilfoyle of trying to shake him down for $100,000 so she could pay an American Express bill, broke the story about her conduct even as other reports focused on the lavish lifestyle she allegedly led alongside powerful Greek business interests during her time in office. As the reports continued to leak, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted a private meeting with Guilfoyle in Greece that was reportedly very heated. Rubio, as the cabinet secretary responsible for the department that runs U.S. embassies and their ambassadors, sits atop the very bureaucracy in which Guilfoyle served, and the reported meeting signaled the allegations had reached the highest levels of American diplomacy.

Beyond the ethical concerns raised by Guilfoyle's alleged conduct, the matter is also controversial because Greece has recently had a positive relationship with the United States — one the government does not wish to disrupt. That assessment came from former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos, who spoke to The Bulwark's Michael Weiss earlier in October.

"But it's really interesting, because there also is this tendency in many elements of Greek society, the press and the government, to downplay this, because U.S.-Greek relations are actually quite good," Polymeropoulos told Weiss. "So what's going to be interesting to see is how much more traction this gets, with the notion that both you and I know there are numerous journalistic outlets that are following stories of the ambassador's kind of nightlife and other proclivities."

Polymeropoulos effectively framed the question readers can now track: whether the numerous journalistic outlets he described as following the ambassador's conduct publish further findings, and whether Greek press and government figures — despite the strong bilateral ties — give the story more traction or continue to downplay it.