2 years ago
A judge on Tuesday hit former White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman with a $61,585 penalty for ignoring her duty to file a financial disclosure report after she was fired from her post as a communications aide to President Donald Trump in December 2017.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon rejected Manigault Newman’s claims that her firing was so abrupt that she did not have a chance to collect her personal files, which contained financial details she said were necessary for the filing.
In an unsparing 15-page opinion, the judge also dismissed her assertion that the protracted delay in filing the report was due to a dispute over precisely which day was her final one on the White House staff.
“Manigault Newman was well aware of her obligation to file a Termination Report … having received countless reminders — but nevertheless failed to file her report for more than a year after the statutory deadline,” wrote Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush. “This conduct establishes a willful violation.”
The Justice Department sued Manigault Newman over the missing form in June 2019. She finally filed the financial disclosure report in September of that year.
Leon agreed with Justice Department attorneys that the “egregiousness” of Manigault Newman’s actions merited the maximum allowable civil penalty under the Ethics in Government Act for the belated filing. “Manigault Newman’s years-long failure to comply with the EIGA after ‘many written and verbal reminders’ is a ‘flagrant’ violation warranting imposition of ‘the full civil penalty,’” Leon wrote.
Manigault Newman appeared as a contestant on several seasons of Trump’s TV show “The Apprentice” before taking a post as head of African-American Outreach for Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. After Trump’s victory, she took a $179,000-a-year job as a communications adviser in the White House Office of Public Liaison. However, her relationship with other aides reportedly grew acrimonious, leading chief of staff John Kelly to fire her in a meeting in the situation room in December 2017.
Unknown to Kelly, Manigault Newman was recording the session.
“It’s important to understand that if we make this a friendly departure … you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation,” Kelly said. He also offered to keep her on the government payroll for a month without her working, she said. She was later escorted out of the White House complex.
In heated social media exchanges about her firing and her surreptitious recordings, Trump later called her a “lowlife” and a “dog.”
Manigault Newman suggested on Tuesday that it was absurd she was being punished for failing to file a form on time, while others — perhaps alluding to her former boss or colleagues — had broken the law without consequence.
“The question remains … are there two systems of justice in this country,” she said in a message posted on Twitter. “One that allows those who violate the Hatch Act and Emoluments Clause a slap on wrist and the other that orders an unprecedented fine (highest in history) for an alleged unintentional failing to file a form?”
Manigault Newman’s attorney, John Phillips, expressed disappointment in the decision and in the Justice Department’s decision to keep pursuing the case even after President Joe Biden’s appointees took over last year.
“I’ve advised her to appeal. I’m frankly stunned by the ruling,” Phillips said in a statement sent via email. “They kept her boxes hostage, which contained the records she needed; while weaponizing litigation against her on multiple fronts. They played games with the system, which is laid out in our Motions and Responses. And a record setting fine as a penalty for public service is beyond inappropriate. Merrick Garland is supposed to be returning stability and reason back to government. This is the opposite of that. They wouldn’t even respond to my requests.”
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.
English (US)