Tag: Omarosa

The DOJ is suing Omarosa for violating the same law Brett Kavanaugh is accused of violating: Ex-White House ethics chief

AlterNet logoOn Monday, former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub noted a massive double standard at the Justice Department, pointing out that government attorneys are suing Omarosa Manigault Newman for financial disclosure violations — while giving a free pass to Brett Kavanaugh, who is accused of even more serious financial disclosure violations.

In fact, noted Shaub, not only is the DOJ not pursuing that allegation, Attorney General Bill Barr is giving the DOJ employees who helped fast-track Kavanaugh through Supreme Court confirmation hearings a prestigious award, usually reserved for prosecutors who take down terrorists and mob bosses: Continue reading “The DOJ is suing Omarosa for violating the same law Brett Kavanaugh is accused of violating: Ex-White House ethics chief”

Republicans Don’t Just Want to Win—They Want to Rig the Game

The following article by Michael Tomasky was posted on the Daily Beast website August 16, 2018:

This is the party they have been becoming since the Brooks Brothers riot, and in Trump they have found their leader.

Credit: Isaac Brekken, Getty

Some friends and I were musing in this post-Omarosa moment about what Republicans would do if a tape in fact emerged of Donald Trump saying the n-word. They’d denounce him, of course. And I’m sure that on some level, most of them would find it genuinely offensive.

But what would they, you know, do? One assumes that Tim Scott and Mia Love, the two African American Republicans on Capitol Hill, would be awfully worked up. Among the remaining 285 white ones, a couple would give thundering floor speeches, probably the same old suspects, Flake and Corker, who are retiring. Ben Sasse would hit social media, as is his ineffectual custom. Then, if recent history is any guide, they’d do… nothing. Another controversy would erupt, the n-word story would move out of the cable-news cycle, and the Republicans would skate away.

The question is why. The conventional wisdom answer, one I’ve believed myself, is “they’re afraid of Trump’s base.” That’s kind of true, but I have come to believe that isn’t the reason.

View the complete post here.

Omarosa: DeVos said black college students lack the ‘capacity to understand’ her agenda

The following article by Banjamin Wermund was posted on the Politico website August 14, 2018:

Omarosa Manigault Newman trashes Education Secretary Betsy DeVos throughout her book and calls the Trump Cabinet official “woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job.” Credit: Andrew Harnik, AP Photo

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos allegedly said the students who booed her May 2017 commencement speech at a historically black college didn’t have the “capacity to understand” what she wants to accomplish, according to the tell-all book by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.

Manigault Newman describes DeVos’ comments during a conversation with her after the May address at Florida’s Bethune-Cookman University as “meaning, all those black students were too stupid to understand her agenda.”

Manigault Newman trashes DeVos throughout the book and calls her “woefully inadequate and not equipped for her job.” She alleges President Donald Trump referred to the education secretary as “Ditzy DeVos” and promised to “get rid of her” after the Bethune-Cookman event.

View the complete article here.

‘People are terrified’: Trump staffers live in fear of Omarosa’s next tape

The following article by Annie Karni was posted on the Politico website August 14, 2018:

Trump aides are suffering from the same type of psychological warfare that gripped Clinton’s campaign during the WikiLeaks dumps.

Omarosa Manigault Newman’s latest reveal indicates that she isn’t just trying to discredit the president — she’s willing to embarrass and expose her former colleagues along the way. Credit: Andrew Harnik, AP Photo

A daily trickle of revealing internal conversations between staffers. Growing anxiety about what one might have once said. No sense of how long it will go on.

Omarosa Manigault Newman’s slow release of secretly taped conversations from inside the Trump campaign and White House is having the same effect on staffers as the daily dumps from WikiLeaks had on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, when chairman John Podesta’s emails were trickled out during the final stretch of the race.

“People are terrified,” one former Trump aide said of the tapes. “Absolutely terrified.”

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Penn Jillette: Trump said ‘racially insensitive things’ during ‘Apprentice’ tapings

The following article by Jacqueline Thomsen was posted on the Hill website August 14, 2018:

Penn Jillette Credit: Gage Skidmore

Comedian and magician Penn Jillette said in a new interview that he heard President Trump “say racially insensitive things that made [him] uncomfortable” during tapings of “Celebrity Apprentice” as new claims from ex-White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” make headlines.

Jillette, who was a contestant on the show in 2013, told Vulture in an interview published Tuesday that Trump would “ramble” during tapings of his former reality TV show.

“I don’t think he ever said anything in that room like ‘African-Americans are inferior’ or anything about rape or grabbing women, but of those two hours every other day in a room with him, every 10 minutes was fingernails on chalkboard,” Jillette said. “He would ask one cast member if he’d rather have sex with this woman or that woman.”

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Trump campaign files arbitration action against Omarosa for NDA breach

The following article by Haley Britzky was posted n the Axios website August 14, 2018:

Credit: Carlo Allegri, Reuters

The Trump campaign has filed an arbitration action against former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman, citing a breach of her 2016 nondisclosure agreement after her release of multiple secret recordingsof Trump administration and campaign officials, per The Washington Examiner.

The big picture: This is a notable escalation in an already nasty battle between Omarosa and President Trump, who called her a “dog” in a controversial tweet Tuesday morning. Trump noted in a tweet on Mondaythat she completed “a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement” — just hours after she released a recording of a phone call with Trump that allegedly took place the day after her firing by Chief of Staff John Kelly.

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Omarosa, and Trump White House’s new hush-money problem

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website August 11 2018:

Former reality star turned White House aide turned reality star Omarosa Manigault is spilling the tea on her days at the White House. Credit: Taylor Turner/The Washington Post

Skepticism abounds, for good reason, about Omarosa Manigault Newman’s White House tell-all. Like Michael Wolff, Manigault Newman has a long, demonstrated history of suspicious claims, and just because the things she writes confirm what lots of people on the left badly want to believe doesn’t mean they should be swallowed whole. Some of what she’s written has already been directly disputed, including by Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George Conway, who has been quite critical of the White House. We should all be very, very careful.

All of that said, this new revelation looks bad, in large part because it is substantiated — and because it has to do, yet again, with hush money.

The Post’s Josh Dawsey has a document verifying  Manigault Newman’s claim that she was offered what amounted to $15,000 per month in hush money to keep quiet about the White House. It was technically for a job with the Trump campaign, but it was premised on her signing a nondisclosure agreement that dealt with her time in the West Wing. That, notably, isn’t generally how NDAs work; they usually involve the job you are getting, not the one you previously had.

View the complete article here.

Rex Tillerson is just the latest Trump aide to speak out after getting fired

The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve was posted on the Washington Post website May 18, 2018:

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned against what he called “a crisis in ethics and integrity” in American government and business on May 16. (Reuters)

THE BIG IDEA: On “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump only fired 15 contestants each season. As president, he’s fired Cabinet secretaries and White House aides at a much higher rate.

The historically high level of turnover that’s characterized the past 16 months has created bad blood and future risk for Trump. Several people who got pushed out unceremoniously, including via Twitter, are now publicly, if implicitly, criticizing him. While most casualties of Trump’s chaotic administration have remained loyal, they are liabilities who could become land mines down the road. Continue reading “Rex Tillerson is just the latest Trump aide to speak out after getting fired”

Black conservatives reel after Omarosa resigns

The following article by Astead W. Herndon and Annie Linskey was posted on the Boston Globe website December 16, 2017:

Credit: Jabin Botsford/Washington Post

WASHINGTON — When the White House senior staff convened Friday for a regular briefing, there was not one black person among the roughly 30 people gathered, and few minorities overall.

The departure Wednesday of Omarosa Manigault, the former assistant to the president and longtime Trump confidant, gained headlines for its bizarre circumstances — she reportedly tried to gain access to the president’s private residence before her White House security pass was revoked. Continue reading “Black conservatives reel after Omarosa resigns”

The Memo: Omarosa’s exit is headache for White House

The following article by Niall Stanage was posted on the Hill website December 15, 2017:

Omarosa Manigault isn’t popular in D.C., but President Trump appears to have her back — for now. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Team Trump is bracing for negative revelations from Omarosa Manigault Newman after she resigned from the White House in disputed circumstances on Wednesday.

“She is a total press hog, so we will certainly see her say horrible things about the team she was a member of until yesterday,” said one former Trump staffer on Thursday. The source requested anonymity to speak candidly.

The dynamics regarding Manigault Newman are complicated, however.  Continue reading “The Memo: Omarosa’s exit is headache for White House”