Justice Department sues Omarosa over alleged ethics violation

(Image credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

last updated June 26, 2019

The Justice Department is suing Omarosa Manigault Newman, President Trump's friend turned foe, accusing her of not filing a financial disclosure report after she was fired from the White House.

Manigault Newman met Trump while appearing on the first of several seasons of his show The Apprentice, and she parlayed that relationship into a job as one his top aides. She was fired in December 2017, after less than a year in the White House. Once a government employee leaves their job, they are required to file the disclosure report, and in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department said Manigault Newman was sent reminder emails but ignored them. The department is asking Manigault Newman pay a $50,000 penalty.

Manigault Newman's attorney, John Phillips, told USA Today this appears to be a case of the White House using the Justice Department to retaliate against his client. After she was fired, Manigault Newman became a fierce critic of Trump, writing a book about what she witnessed while working for him (in turn, he went on the attack, calling her "wacky"). Phillips said Manigault Newman wrote emails and made phone calls asking for seven boxes of documents she needed to fill out the report; she was told they would be sent to her on May 10, after the deadline to file, but they never came, Phillips said.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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