White House battered by secret recording scandal
Publish date: 15 August 2018
Issue Number: 1745
Diary: Legalbrief eLaw
Category: Security
The revelations surrounding a tell-all memoir by a former White House senior aide has sparked a fresh political crisis for the Trump administration. Legalbrief reports that Omarosa Manigault Newman has released her secret recording of chief of staff John Kelly firing her in the White House Situation Room. She also revealed a secret recording she made of the President calling her after she was fired and claiming he was unaware of it. The recording could be treated as a breach of White House security. ‘The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security – and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee,’ White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said in a statement. While neither tape contained outwardly embarrassing language, their mere existence has caused deep embarrassment. After all, employees are not permitted to bring personal electronic devices into the Situation Room, an extremely secure complex of conference rooms. And, as CNN reports, the tapes confirm that in Trump's White House, there are few norms or expectations of decorum that cannot be shattered. Aides are now wondering who else might be using a recording device to capture audio from private conversations. And they are girding for Manigault Newman to release more of her tapes, which she has teased at in a string of television interviews. When asked whether she would make more of her recordings public, she said: ‘I'm expecting that they're going to retaliate and so I'm just going to stand back and wait.’ The report notes that the tapes have only deepened a pre-existing sense of paranoia among Trump staffers, according to senior administration officials, fuelling an underlying suspicion that everyone inside the West Wing is out for themselves. Several senior aides said on Monday that they doubted Manigault Newman was the only person taping her conversations at work. Trump himself used the tactic in his life as a private businessman and the question of whether he's taping his conversations in the Oval Office arose last year when he suggested there might be recordings of an encounter with former FBI Director James Comey.
Manigault Newman also claims she has heard a tape of Trump using the N-word and other racial epithets during filming for The Apprentice. In her book, Unhinged, a copy of which was first obtained by The Guardian ahead of its publication next week, she insisted that tapes did exist, but did not say she heard them, or that she had heard Trump use the word herself. Manigault Newman, who was once the most prominent black employee in the White House, claimed she had been played the recording since the book went to print. ‘I’ve heard his voice. Once I heard it for myself it confirmed what I feared the most, that Donald Trump is a con and has been masquerading as someone who is actually open to engaging with diverse communities. But when he talks that way, the way he does on this tape, it confirms that he is truly a racist.’ The author claimed its owner is ‘afraid because of the forces working to stop it coming out’.
Trump used Twitter to hit back at Manigault Newman, writing ‘Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will,’ He added that ‘she begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart.’ The Daily Maverick reports that he also claimed that Manigault Newman ‘has a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement!’ If such deals prohibit government staff from revealing all information they learn of at work, the American Civil Liberties Union said ‘they are unconstitutional and unenforceable’. The report notes that the latest recording appears to show a President who has little knowledge of what is happening inside his own White House or who is willing to lie to avoid confrontation.
In a separate development, Trump yesterday (Tuesday) slammed Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who came under scrutiny for anti-Trump texts he sent from a work phone during the 2016 presidential campaign and was recently fired. An ABC News report notes that Strzok, who was fired on Friday after serving in the FBI for 21 years, said he was 'stunned and humbled by the extraordinary outpouring of support'. His lawyer Aitan Goelman said Strzok's firing 'departed from established precedent' especially because the deputy director's decision to terminate him went even further than the recommendation of the FBI's ethics office.
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