Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been ordered to pay nearly $1.3 million in legal fees to former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman by a New York court arbitrator. The award comes after Trump filed a complaint against Manigault Newman over her 2018 book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” in which she called Trump a racist and suggested that he was in mental decline. Trump’s arbitration complaint against Manigault Newman alleged that she was in breach of a 2016 confidentiality agreement.
In September, arbitrator T. Andrew Brown ruled that the former president’s nondisclosure agreement with Manigault Newman was “unenforceable.” Brown said in the ruling that the terms of the nondisclosure agreement were “highly problematic” because it did not adhere to typical legal standards — describing it as “vague, indefinite, and therefore void and unenforceable.” In the decision on Tuesday, Brown said that Manigault Newman was “defending herself in a claim which was extensively litigated for more than three years, against an opponent who undoubtedly commanded far greater resources than did Respondent.”
Manigault Newman served as a liaison to the Black community during the 2016 presidential campaign, and her subsequent role as director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison made her the highest-ranking African American woman in the White House. Manigault Newman resigned from the position in December 2017, allegedly due to tension between her and then-Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Editorial credit: Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock.com