Former Donald Trump White House adviser Omarosa Manigault-Newman said on MSNBC on Saturday that the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot is on the right track by focusing on Trump aide Katrina Pierson if they want to get to the bottom of White House involvement in the insurgency.
Manigault-Newman told presenter Alex Witt that investigators must “follow the money” and that Pierson, who has been subpoenaed, may reveal a treasure mine of damning evidence.
“What about the House select committee that’s investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, issuing 11 more subpoenas, all for people who helped organize the rally right before the mob went on the attack?” host Witt began. “Among them, 2016 Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. I’ve interviewed her. I know that you know her. Are you surprised by this?”
“I’m not really surprised because not only was Katrina one of the organizers, but she was behind the money, you know, and every scandal, it’s ‘always follow the money,'” Manigault-Newman replied. “And because she was so involved with raising money and organizing the events, I believe the committee is right in subpoenaing her. She’s going to have a lot of information, and she had a lot of insight on what they knew and when, and I truly believe because of Donald Trump’s violent instincts that he knew that things would probably get out of hand.”
“So yes, Katrina should be very concerned, and we’ll see what happens, but the committee is on the right track,” she added.
Omarosa who served once as President Donald Trump’s aide, was sued by him for breaking her NDA she signed while working in the White House.
However, the judge in the case, after a three year battle, ruled that the NDA was not enforceable, and her lawyer warns that it may leash a new wave of humiliating revelations from her as a result.
The comments were said after Trump sued Omarosa, among the first of many former staffers to denigrate him in a tell-all book.
Her book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” was a deeply defamatory account of the year Omorosa spent working for Trump between 2017 and 2018.
Her attorney, John Phillips, said that the ruling outcome would be an encouragement for other Trump staffers who had been hesitant to speak because of NDAs.
“People who signed these NDAs should sleep better and speak more freely,” Phillips told the legal publication Law & Crime. “Kudos to Omarosa Manigault Newman for coming forward and taking this on.”
Trump’s legal team argued that Omarosa broke a clause of the NDA requiring her not to discuss any of her time working for Trump.
As well as lambasting Trump in her book, she also made multiple television and print appearances in which she disparaged him, Trump’s legal team said.
However, a judge decided on September 24 in a summary judgment that the NDA was not legally enforceable under New York law. He said that it was too ambiguously written and vast in reach to be implemented.
“The agreement effectively imposes on Respondent an obligation to never say anything remotely critical of Mr. Trump, or his or his family members’ interests, for the rest of her life. Such a burden is certainly unreasonable,” T. Andrew Brown, the arbitrator, wrote in the judgment.
He added that the terms of the agreement were “vague, indefinite, and therefore void and unenforceable.”
Trump will now be forced to pay a “reasonable” settlement to compensate Manigault Newman’s legal fees and costs.
During an interview with MSNBC’s Alex Witt, Omarosa stated that she believed that Trump was “going through a psychotic episode” because of his election loss.
Since losing the election back in November, Trump has pushed false claims of widespread voter fraud and filed over two dozen lawsuits in key states in an attempt to overturn the election results. Those lawsuits have all been thrown out. Trump also tried a Hail Mary pass by taking his claims directly to the Supreme Court, but the highest court in the land shot him down as well.
Witt asked Omarosa if she thought that Trump really believes that he won the presidential election.
“I think Donald Trump is going through a psychotic episode,” she said. “I think that he has come to terms with his loss, but his arrogance, his ego will not allow him to accept that he is not going to be president come January.”
She then added that his actions since the election remind her of “The Apprentice” because he’s “trying to produce a moment” to change the results.
“But this is not ‘The Apprentice’, this is not a reality show,” she said. “The American people need true leadership, not a reality TV host, which Donald Trump is reverting to.”
Manigault Newman wrote a book about her experience in the White House called “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.” The book was published in 2018.
Since leaving the White House she has been an outspoken critic of Trump. She has called him out as a “racist” who is “trying to undermine our democracy,”
During her interview, she adds that she “feels bad” for anyone left in the Trump administration because he’s “going to turn to anyone and blame everyone for his loss except for himself.”
“Certainly, Vice President Pence is going to be on the receiving end of Donald Trump’s wrath, and it’s erratic, it’s intense, and at many times it makes absolutely no sense,” she added.
Manigault Newman made headlines back in September when she came forward to claim that she had recordings of Eric Trump’s wife badmouthing Donald, Melania, and Ivanka Trump.
Omarosa appeared on Michael Cohen’s podcast Mea Culpa, Cohen asked Omarosa about the secret tapes she made of Trump’s daughter-in-law during her time in the White House.
“The reason why Lara doesn’t say much about me is because if she recalls all the conversations we had, particularly when we were on the Women for Trump bus, she was saying some things that I think the family would be quite interested in,” Omarosa told Cohen.
Omarosa has previously released a secret tape of Lara Trump offering her a $15,000-a-month job after she was fired from the administration.
The tape was made on December 16, 2017, just a day or two after Omarosa left the White House. The recording corroborates claims she made in her book about receiving an offer from the president’s re-election campaign. She called that offer “hush money.”
Omarosa met Lara Trump before taking a job in the White House. They first met when she appeared on the NBC reality show “The Apprentice.”
Omarosa wrote in her book that she was offered a high pay position in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement. She turned the offer down.
Omarosa told Cohen that “when I left the White House I did a couple of interviews and I made it very clear that I had observed things that were very disturbing and I was very interested in sharing those things and very shortly after those interviews were when Lara called me to try to in fact buy my silence, whatever it was she thought I was going to share, it disturbed her enough to call me and to make that offer.”
“And she was explicit, we will pay you this money but you can’t be saying those things, those bad things,” she added.
Omarosa went on to tell Cohen that Lara was “all over the place” and suggested someone had “coached” her and given her “talkers.”
“She said you can’t say those things, it sounds like you have something in your back pocket,” said Omarosa.
Omarosa was fired from her position in the White House back in January of 2018. She says that Lara had no idea that she had other recordings that include her “bad mouthing” members of her extended family.
Cohen, asked Omarosa, who is African American if she believed that Donald Trump used her to try and silence his critics who have labeled him a racist.
“Donald Trump uses everyone, I don’t think I’m unique in the equation, I think that he’s exploited you (Cohen), I think he’s exploited the evangelicals, I think he’s exploited black Christians and supporters. He uses everyone and everything is so transactional for him,” she said.
“So, I’m not going to personalize this, I knew Donald Trump long before the campaign and so when I had that opportunity…to serve in that way then yes. I had one of the most unique relationships in terms of an African-American woman because as you stated, there were no other options for people to serve.
“In some ways I guess, I blame myself for just not seeing the things that are so clear now back then, really was the biggest factor as to how I became part of that craziness,” she added.
Prior to this ruling, many former Trump staffers published unflattering books about him, causing his staff a mountain of nightmarish public image issues with his current aides.
And there are still some senior aides who signed NDAs who have not told their stories.
Publishing houses, on your marks, get set…
