President Trump’s campaign has filed an arbitration action against Omarosa Manigault Newman, alleging that the former White House aide, who just published a tell-all book, has broken a 2016 confidentiality agreement, a campaign official said Tuesday.
The action, which the campaign said was filed in New York, comes amid a publicity tour by Manigault Newman to promote her book, “Unhinged,” which portrays Trump as bigoted and racist and questions his mental capacity.
The Washington Post has not seen a nondisclosure agreement signed by Manigault Newman during the campaign, but copies of other agreements signed by aides include broad prohibitions on behavior and appear to be drawn heavily from similar contracts used by the Trump Organization, the president’s family firm.
Under one such agreement, signers promised not to “demean or disparage publicly” Trump, his company or any member of his family. Signers also agree to participate in binding arbitration at Trump’s discretion if a dispute arises over the agreement. Trump also reserves the right to take signers to court.
Trump has threatened legal action against book authors and other perceived adversaries in the past but has not followed through on many occasions.
It was not immediately clear what Trump’s campaign, which was headquartered in New York in 2016, was hoping to achieve with its action filed with the American Arbitration Association.
A lawyer for Manigault Newman declined immediate comment.
The action comes as Trump has sought to publicly disparage Manigault Newman, the former reality television star who was the highest-ranking black employee in the White House.
Writing on Twitter on Tuesday morning, the president called her “that dog” and a “crying lowlife,” and praised his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, for firing her last year.
After requiring nondisclosure agreements of campaign aides, Trump has sought NDAs from dozens of White House aides, according to current and former administration employees.
In her book, Manigault Newman writes that the Trump campaign offered her a $15,000-a-month job upon leaving the White House in exchange for signing a broadly worded NDA that would have barred her from disclosing details of her tenure in the administration. That agreement was never signed, she says.
Trump pointed out on Twitter on Monday that Manigault Newman had signed an earlier agreement.
Josh Dawsey, Philip Rucker and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.
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