Government

Trump Campaign Gets Whacked In Omarosa Arbitration Claim

So much winning!

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(Photo by PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

How spectacularly do you have to botch a confidentiality agreement that your own arbitrator, whom you pay to lock that stuff down behind closed doors, not only dropkicks it, but he makes you cough up for the employee’s attorneys fees?

That is some bigly bad drafting. But yesterday our litigious ex-president got his ample keister handed to him by Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former Apprentice contestant turned White House staffer who published a tell-all book about her time in Trumpland.

T. Andrew Brown, President of the New York State Bar Association, served as arbitrator in the Trump campaign’s attempt to enforce the terms of the non-disclosure agreement Manigault Newman signed as a condition of her employment. The original complaint sought to block disclosures about her time in the White House, including the infamous conversation she recorded with then Chief of Staff John Kelly threatening prosecution if she contested her termination, but those claims were dropped or dismissed by the arbitrator.

The campaign was represented by Charles Harder (he has recently withdrawn as counsel, but not before pocketing $3 million in fees), who argued that any comments about Manigault Newman’s time on the campaign or criticism of any Trump business or family member constituted a grave violation demanding monetary compensation for his client. Unfortunately for Team Trump, Jessica Denson, another ex-campaign staffer was simultaneously litigating an identical agreement in the Southern District of New York, and US District Judge Paul Gardephe ruled in March that the campaign’s non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses were unenforceable under New York law.

The campaign attempted to distinguish between Denson and Manigault Newman, arguing that latter “warranted a strict confidentiality provision as a term of her employment, since Respondent was known to be ‘nasty’ and ‘confrontational’ on the television show.” The arbitrator found this line of reasoning “unpersuasive.”

The arbitrator did not point out the inherent filthiness of arguing that identical contracts mean different things when applied to a White woman and a “nasty” Black woman. But we will.

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Applying the same reasoning as the federal court, the arbitrator further found that “the confidentiality provisions fail as vague and indefinite” under New York contract law. He was particularly unimpressed with the tautological definition of “confidential material” as “all information (whether or not embodied in any media) of a private, proprietary, or confidential nature, which Mr. Trump insists remain private or confidential.”

“[T]here is no way here to tell if a breach has occurred, since the determination of whether there is a breach is left to the sole determination of Mr. Trump,” Arbitrator Brown wrote.

And he described the NDA provisions barring the employee from speaking ill of Trump’s grandchildren and their spouses for all eternity as “overbroad, indefinite, and unreasonable” in violation of New York law.

So now the Trump campaign gets to pay Manigault Newman’s legal bills — in addition to goosing publicity for her book.

Trump seems to be handling it with his usual aplomb.

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“I gave Omarosa three attempts at The Apprentice and she failed. At her desperate request I gave her an attempt at the White House and she failed there too, people truly hated her. At least now I don’t have to let her fail anymore,” he carped to The Hill this morning, adding that “Nobody in her life has done more for Omarosa than a man named Donald Trump. Unfortunately, like certain others, she forgot all about that — which is fine with me!”

But Manigault Newman was exultant, crowing, “Finally the bully has met his match!”

Her lawyer, John Phillips, who has a hilarious account of the case on his firm’s website, was similarly feisty, suggesting that the Trump campaign was about to be writing him a check big enough to bankrupt it.

As a lawyer, this was an unimaginable case- a United States President abusing the Constitution and Bill of Rights with outrageously unenforceable non-disclosure agreements. Since Omarosa came forward, and was sued, we’ve said this agreement was illegal and offensive. It took too long to finally get past the frivolous defenses, experts and lawyers like Charles Harder billing the Campaign millions of dollars while free speech was stigmatized.

It’s over. We’ve won in Donald Trump and the Trump Campaign’s chosen forum. They now owe attorney’s fees. Whether the Campaign tries to bankrupt out of this ruling or it energizes more people to come forward and blow the whistle on corrupt government, it’s a win we can all be proud of. Kudos to Omarosa Manigault Newman for coming forward and taking this on.

LOL.

Arbitration Docs via Phillips & Hunt

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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