Day 424: Trump’s Paranoia Continues: Makes Staff Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements
They’re likely unenforceable.
Donald Trump has long had an army of lawyers seeking to protect him and his image at every turn. It should come as no surprise that such actions continued when Trump was elected. According to The Washington Post, Trump forced those working in the White House to a sign wide-reaching non-disclosure agreements.
Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post on Sunday reported that President Trump, in the early months of his administration, asked White House staff members to sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information. And his staffers complied.
A copy of a draft of the document obtained by Marcus said those who violate the agreement would be exposed to $10 million in penalties for each unauthorized revelation of confidential information — an enormous amount that she suggests probably didn’t make it into the final draft. It bars staff from discussing “all nonpublic information I learn of or gain access to in the course of my official duties in the service of the United States Government on White House staff,” including “communications . . . with members of the press” and “with employees of federal, state, and local governments.” It also prohibits “works of fiction” that mention government operations or are based on confidential information.
And the agreement has no end date, meaning it essentially keeps former staffers from speaking out forever.
If he was just a private citizen with just a private company, Trump could certainly have Trump Organization employees sign NDAs. The problem with Trump’s White House version is that every single person that walks into the building and collects a federal paycheck — including Trump — is a public employee working for taxpayers.
“Public employees can’t be gagged by private agreements, these so-called NDAs are unconstitutional and unenforceable,”Ben Wizner said, ACLU’s director of speech, privacy and technology projects said.
The alleged penalty would be paid to the federal government, which underscores the true absurdity of the NDA: if a public employee says something about another public employee, then the government can collect millions of dollars.
Trump’s attempt to intimidate his subordinates into silence isn’t about protecting government secrets. There are harsh federal laws for those who reveal classified information. The NDAs are about protecting stories of Trump’s behavior, which in the past have been consistently described as everything from lazy to odd to unhinged. Stories have come out of the White House since day one about Trump’s temperament and shaky managing skills.
There’s nothing Trump can do about anonymous leaking, but first-hand accounts and tell-all books — similar to Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury — are particularly damaging. Threatening legal action against those that go public is positively Trumpian and a desperate Hail Mary hoping to stem the flow of information to the public.
424 days in, 1038 to go
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