What the Journal Reported
REPORTED. The Wall Street Journal reported in September that U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle repeatedly promoted Aktor, a Greek construction firm that has moved into natural gas, while an Aktor lobbyist, Christos Marafatsos, attended her meetings with foreign officials. The coverage cites federal lobbying records showing Aktor paid him $160,000 through June, and says she arrived in Bulgaria on a jet provided by Aktor's chief executive. A U.S. Embassy official said she acted in "full compliance with State Department guidance." The Old Goat's earlier dispatch covers the separate allegation, from donor Eric Deters, that she asked for $100,000 in exchange for access, which her lawyer disputes.
What the Filings Show
DOCUMENTED. The Old Goat searched the Senate lobbying database on Oct. 12 for filings naming Aktor as a client. Eight came back, from two firms.
DOCUMENTED. The first is Catalyst Strategies, LLC, where Marafatsos is the listed lobbyist. It registered for Aktor Energy S.A. on Dec. 29, 2025, describing engagement with State Department and executive-branch officials on the company's projects and their fit with U.S. policy priorities. It reports income from Aktor of $40,000 for the fourth quarter of 2025, $60,000 for the first quarter of 2026 and $60,000 for the second. That is $160,000, the Journal's figure.
DOCUMENTED. The second is Cove Strategies. Its filings list Matthew Schlapp as the lobbyist and Aktor Technical and Energy Products as the client. Cove registered on Dec. 2, 2025, 27 days before Catalyst, for outreach to "senior U.S. Executive Branch officials" on the company's projects, with issues listed as energy, natural resources and manufacturing. Its later reports describe the work as "encouraging European demand for natural gas" and name the Executive Office of the President as the government body contacted. It reports $130,000 for the fourth quarter of 2025, $80,000 for the first quarter of 2026 and $80,000 for the second. That is $290,000.
DOCUMENTED. Added together, the two firms report $450,000 from two Aktor entities across three quarters. The Old Goat did not check whether Aktor Energy S.A. and Aktor Technical and Energy Products share a parent. The Journal coverage the Old Goat reviewed names Marafatsos and does not name Schlapp.
REPORTED. Schlapp is the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference, and leads Cove Strategies, per public biographies and press accounts.
DOCUMENTED. The Old Goat searched the Justice Department's FARA registrant lists, active and terminated, for Aktor, Catalyst, Cove, Marafatsos and Schlapp and found no match. That search covers registrants, not foreign principals. Lobbying for a foreign company can lawfully run through the Lobbying Disclosure Act instead of the Foreign Agents Registration Act in some cases, so a missing FARA entry is not a finding of a violation.
What the Old Goat Thinks It Means
This part is opinion, labeled as opinion. The Journal story is about one lobbyist in one set of embassy rooms. The filings add a second channel the story does not describe: a firm led by a prominent figure in the president's political movement, registered first, naming the White House as the place it lobbies. The Old Goat's INFERENCE is that Aktor bought two doors, State and the embassy through Catalyst, the Executive Office of the President through Cove, and that readers following only the ambassador are watching half of the spending.
Counter-evidence, plainly: hiring more than one lobbyist is routine, and both firms disclosed their work as the law asks. Cove's stated issue, European demand for natural gas, matches an energy policy the administration has pursued on its own. A listed contact with the Executive Office of the President is a category, not a named meeting. No filing or news account the Old Goat read connects Schlapp to Guilfoyle, to the Bulgaria trip or to the Deters allegation, and the Old Goat does not claim a connection.
The ambassador story shows one lobbyist in the room. The filings show two firms at the door.
The questions that would settle it: what Cove's White House contacts were, whether the two Aktor entities are related, and whether either lobbyist attended official meetings abroad. The next filings are the third-quarter reports, due Oct. 20, and the House Oversight Democrats' document deadline of Oct. 22 for Guilfoyle. The Old Goat will update this page when they arrive.