Donald Trump claims that Omarosa Manigault Newman shouldn’t be talking about her time in his White House because she signed a nondisclosure agreement … which means that the Trump White House made employees sign nondisclosure agreements, something they’d previously refused to confirm. Here’s the thing about NDAs for White House staffers: they’re not enforceable. Public employees aren’t bound to keep the secrecy of an individual, no matter what Donald Trump thinks.
The use of NDAs is a stellar example of how corrupt and incompetent the Trump White House is. White House Counsel Don McGahn pushed staffers to sign the agreements in the early days of the Trump administration, the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker report. But:
Initially, McGahn told Trump he would not draft or give aides the NDAs because they were not enforceable, White House officials said. But in the end, McGahn created a document that said aides would not divulge any confidential or nonpublic information to any person outside the building at any time, according to three people who signed it.
The process, like much in the West Wing, was haphazard. Dozens of senior aides signed the documents, but some were assuaged before signing by McGahn, who said they were unenforceable. Others, however, said they were never given documents to sign.
Let’s just review: the president told the White House counsel to write nondisclosure agreements and get people to sign them. The counsel said no, they’re not enforceable. Then he did it, but in order to get people to sign it he told them it wasn’t enforceable. And meanwhile, Omarosa was busily recording conversations for future use.