legal drama
Former Trump campaign staffer wants to void confidentiality agreement to file harassment lawsuit
A former staffer of President Trump's 2016 campaign is suing to invalidate a nondisclosure agreement she signed as a condition of her employment on the campaign team, claiming it is too broad and violates public policy.
Jessica Denson, who worked as a phone bank administrator and led Hispanic outreach efforts, says that the NDA that the Trump team required has kept her from being able to file discrimination and harassment claims, Bloomberg reports. Denson alleges that a superior on the campaign team harassed her, but says that an earlier lawsuit filed in New York state court was impeded by a demand to uphold the confidentiality deal.
The ex-staffer says that her discrimination lawsuit didn't violate her NDA, as no confidential information about Trump, his company, or his family was included, reports Bloomberg. But the Trump campaign disagreed, and filed a claim for $1.5 million in damages in response to her November 2017 lawsuit.
The NDA requires any dispute to be resolved in arbitration, so Denson wants the NDA nullified in order to address her claims of harassment and a hostile work environment. Her lawsuit against the campaign, filed last week, is related to comments made by other staffers who accused her of leaking portions of Trump's taxes. Read more at Bloomberg.