So President Donald Trump wants Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former contestant on The Apprentice he hired as a campaign aide and later as a White House staffer, to go away. Truth be told, that’s a sentiment we all share to some degree.
But instead, she’s all over the airwaves with tales of a White House in disarray as she dishes from her new book and shares recordings of conversations with the president and his chief of staff.
And in his response, the president is elevating an issue that is larger and probably more important than anything Manigault Newman could raise on her own.
In seeking to muzzle her by enforcing a nondisclosure agreement she signed as a campaign staffer, the president tips this into a fight over legitimate public disclosure.
Keeping campaign secrets is one thing. But once she was hired at the White House, she started working for the American people. That’s a critical distinction.
Let’s start with the principle at stake. All federal employees work for the American people. Laws already exist to keep classified information secret. So officials owe their primary duty to the law and the people, not when deciding whether and how to talk about their service after they leave.
It’s not for the president to make that decision for them. And it’s certainly not something that should be limited by an agreement signed with a political campaign. Such an agreement, if enforceable at all, should be limited to Manigault Newman’s campaign work.
A second point involves something a little bigger. Trump has routinely sought to use nondisclosure agreements to ensure the loyalty and silence of those in his administration.
Adviser Kellyanne Conway has acknowledged as much: “We have confidentiality agreements in the West Wing, absolutely we do. And why wouldn’t we?”
But these kinds of agreements are rarely used in government, and according to The Washington Post and Politico, the White House’s top lawyer has argued against their use.
Let’s acknowledge there are many reasons former White House aides should refrain from the sort of dishing we’ve seen this week. Sometimes the better part of valor really is discretion.
But we’ve tended to leave that judgment up to the former aides. Their candid reflections are vitally important for historians, journalists and others charged with making sense of the history the officials helped make.
Every president should know that part of what makes a staff member worth hiring is that he or she will possess sound judgment and be capable of fairness, discretion and honesty, all in good measure.
Keeping that in mind on the front end, when presidents decide whom to hire, is the best way to avoid the kind of spectacle Trump now wishes he could erase.
— The Dallas Morning News
