Another shoe drops on Madeleine Westerhout's firing

That could explain his "warning" tweet.  Of course, he may have assumed she signed one.

Ms. Westerhout attended the dinner with Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman. After he left, she began to tell reporters about Mr. Trump’s eating habits; his youngest son, Barron Trump; and his thoughts about the weight and appearance of his daughter Tiffany Trump, according to a group of current and former administration officials who were told what happened.

[...]

[I]t took over a week for the information to reach the president. It was delivered to him by Mick Mulvaney, the president’s acting chief of staff, who said Ms. Westerhout had indiscreetly discussed details of his family with reporters.

An ambivalent Mr. Trump had to be persuaded throughout the day Thursday that Ms. Westerhout, who was on vacation in California, needed to resign, which she did that night.

[...]

As he left Washington for Camp David on Friday afternoon, soon after details of Ms. Westerhout’s comments were first reported by Politico, Mr. Trump said Ms. Westerhout had been drinking when she “said things about my children” to reporters. He praised Ms. Westerhout’s work in the White House and admonished reporters for breaking an off-the-record agreement.

“But still, you don’t say things like she said,” the president added of Ms. Westerhout, “which were just a little bit hurtful to some people.”

[...]

In recent months, Ms. Westerhout had become more interested in traveling with the president, and in Bedminster, it was noticed at a campaign briefing that she was seated closer to Mr. Trump than was his chief of staff.

  NYT

He liked her.

Ms. Westerhout’s main responsibilities were answering the phone and providing clerical help to the president. But her role was tailored to Mr. Trump’s particular eccentricities. Whenever he held an event at the White House, it fell to Ms. Westerhout to make sure that it was well attended, according to one White House official.

[...]

If there was any question that the room appeared [less than] full, Ms. Westerhout would make sure to find staff members or interns to send to it to avoid Mr. Trump’s anger at lackluster attendance.

[...]

The president had grown to trust her and had grown fond of her. According to Mr. Alberta’s book, Mr. Trump would refer to Ms. Westerhout as “my beautiful beauty.” She was often at his side on trips to Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Fla., resort, where she would accept gifts on behalf of Mr. Trump and trade business cards with his supporters. Some of them knew that if they wanted to reach the president by phone, they could bypass his other gatekeepers and go directly to her.

But she also had a fairly large coterie of enemies, including some in the East Wing — the purview of the first lady, Melania Trump — which viewed her with suspicion.

[...]

[C]urrent and former officials also expressed alarm about what information Ms. Westerhout could share down the road, not just about the president, but about her colleagues.

Adding to the concern was the fact that, unlike most other officials, Ms. Westerhout was not thought to have signed a nondisclosure agreement.

[...]

At least one publishing house on Friday had discussions about trying to approach Ms. Westerhout for a book, according to one person familiar with the discussions.

Madeleine is going to get rich.

Will we have to wait until she gets that book deal to know what she said about Trump's eating habits and Barron, or will somebody leak it before she gets the chance?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So now we know what she said

Madeleine Westerhout, who left her White House job suddenly on Thursday as President Trump’s personal assistant, was fired after bragging to reporters that she had a better relationship with Trump than his own daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany Trump, and that the president did not like being in pictures with Tiffany because he perceived her as overweight.

[...]

Westerhout also jokingly told the journalists that Trump couldn’t pick Tiffany out of a crowd, said one of the people. “She had a couple drinks and in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment, she opened up to the reporters,” the person said.

[...]

Trump on Friday confirmed that Westerhout had been dismissed for talking to reporters about his children, calling the comments "a little bit hurtful."

"It was too bad," Trump told reporters before leaving the White House for Camp David, adding that Westerhout was a "very good person" who performed her job well. "I wished her well."

[...]

Trump said he would speak by phone with Tiffany when he reached Camp David, disputing that he had ever personally disparaged his daughter.

“I love Tiffany,” he said.

  Politico

So, soon we're going to see a picture of Trump with Tiffany, I suppose.



Madeleine Westerhout and Sarah Sanders - literally Trump's water carriers.

UPDATE:  Dear Madeleine, Warning: better hold off on that book...


UPDATE:

Seems like maybe she didn't sign an NDA.  And she said even more.

End the threats and take action

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Tuesday threatened to withhold the salaries of White House officials who enforce nondisclosure agreements that lack protections for federal whistleblowers.

The move is the latest effort by Cummings to demand documents from a defiant Trump administration by invoking the congressional power of the purse and threatening officials' pay.

[...]

In [a] Tuesday letter to [White House Chief of Staff Mick] Mulvaney, Cummings asked for copies of all nondisclosure or confidentiality agreements signed by any Executive Office of the President employees, interns, fellows or advisers, as well as any other documents and communications relating to workers who raised concerns about the terms, by May 28.

Last week, Cummings threatened the salaries of Interior, Commerce and Justice department officials if they block ongoing committee investigations.

[...]

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) also said last week that lawmakers are considering imposing fines, up to $25,000 per day, on Trump officials who don't comply with subpoenas.

“I think it’s much more practical to consider levying individual fines on the person, not the office, until they comply,” Schiff said at an event hosted by Axios. “You could fine someone $25,000 a day until they comply and that would probably get their attention.”

   The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Avenatti responds to Trump's pleading

Trump's lawyers are now trying to claim that there was never any valid non-disclosure agreement in the first place.

 [...] 

 [...] 

Read the whole thing here for yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They want their money back

Michael Cohen's shell company has reportedly moved to vacate a 2016 nondisclosure agreement with adult-film star Stormy Daniels, requesting that she return the $130,000 she received as part of the deal.

[...]

Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing Daniels in her defamation case against Cohen and Trump over their denials of the alleged affair, told CNN that the move was likely made in an attempt to protect Trump from being deposed.

"I haven't had a chance to digest it, I just saw it on my email literally right before I came on," Avenatti told CNN.

  The Hill

I'm no lawyer. I'm sure I don't know.  But, I presume that since Trump has admitted to reimbursing Cohen the $130,000, it's his to try to collect, not Cohen's.  I would think the motion would be denied  on the grounds that Cohen has no standing to sue for reimbursement.  They already got their money back.




Further Avenatti tweets:

We also have further relief we are entitled to so the “offer” is DOA. We have been anticipating this for months.

Michael Cohen is back to playing games and trying to protect Donald Trump. He is now pulling a legal stunt to try and “fix it” so that we can’t depose Trump and present evidence to the American people about what happened. He is not a hero nor a patriot. He deserves what he gets.

 Let me be clear - my client and I will never settle the cases absent full disclosure and accountability. We are committed to the truth. And we are committed to delivering it to the America people. #Basta

What?!

More on those  NDAs White House staffers had to sign...

President Trump’s escalating digs at ex-aide Omarosa Manigault Newman over her gossipy new tell-all have brought new scrutiny to this White House’s unconventional—and, arguably, unconstitutional—policy of requiring staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent them disparaging the president.

The rule extended not just to those public-facing West Wing regulars, like Apprentice star Manigault Newman or former press secretary Sean Spicer—but also to lower-level recruits less likely to shop a White House memoir.

[...]

The NDAs were administered by the ethics lawyer in the White House counsel’s office, Stefan Passantino—who appears to have foreseen from Day 1 the coming wave of ex-staffers’ seeking to cash in with tell-alls of their own.

  Weekly Standard

Sure, but was he actually qualified to be a lawyer, much less an ethics lawyer? Because, check this out:

“When we all got onboarded one of the things we had to do for our official ethics briefing was sign an NDA,” the staffer said—but they could not keep a signed copy for themselves. “Everything got taken away as soon as we signed it.”

Never mind unethical.  This is plainly illegal.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump is "suing" Omarosa in arbitration.  All she needs is a good lawyer.  His "ethics" lawyer and the White House counsel have undboutedly informed him that he'd lose in an actual lawsuit.  I think he's about to find out Stefan Passatino was blowing smoke when he told him NDAs would work in the White House just like they worked for The Apprentice.  And Stormy Daniels.

Placating the president is not a job requirement

Or at least, it shouldn't be.

For months, officials in the West Wing have refused to confirm reports by The New York Times and other news outlets that aides were ordered to sign nondisclosure agreements, which legal experts say are essentially unenforceable for government employees.

[...]

It has been routine for White House officials to be required to sign confidentiality documents acknowledging that they may not publicly disclose classified information to people who do not have the proper security clearance.

But it is highly unusual for White House officials to be asked to sign such agreements for matters beyond classified information.

[...]

Former West Wing officials have said that while they were enacted, members of the White House counsel’s office signaled that they could not be enforced, and that they were being executed to reassure Mr. Trump.

[...]

Taping conversations is, in fact, a longtime tactic of Mr. Trump’s.

For decades, he used it both as an insurance policy and for private titillation as a real estate developer who liked to keep a record, should he ever need it, of phone conversations and meetings, according to former aides. Staff members warned one another to be careful if they used his phone system at his private club Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, and to be mindful of what they said across his desk at Trump Tower in Manhattan. During the presidential campaign, aides worried that their office on the fifth floor of Trump Tower was bugged.

  NYT

Bingo.  Gaslit nation. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

If this can't be overturned in court, our democracy is indeed dead

In the early months of the administration, at the behest of now-President Trump, who was furious over leaks from within the White House, senior White House staff members were asked to, and did, sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information and exposing them to damages for any violation. Some balked at first but, pressed by then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and the White House Counsel’s Office, ultimately complied, concluding that the agreements would likely not be enforceable in any event.

[...]

Moreover, said the source, this confidentiality pledge would extend not only after an aide’s White House service but also beyond the Trump presidency. “It’s not meant to be constrained by the four years or eight years he’s president — or the four months or eight months somebody works there. It is meant to survive that.”

[...]

And while White House staffers have various confidentiality obligations — maintaining the secrecy of classified information or attorney-client privilege, for instance — the notion of imposing a side agreement, supposedly enforceable even after the president leaves office, is not only oppressive but constitutionally repugnant.

[...]

If you have a leaker on your staff, the cure is firing, not suing.

[...]

I haven’t been able to lay hands on the final agreement, but I do have a copy of a draft, and it is a doozy. It would expose violators to penalties of $10 million, payable to the federal government, for each and any unauthorized revelation of “confidential” information, defined as “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.” The $10 million figure, I suspect, was watered down in the final version, because the people to whom I have spoken do not remember that jaw-dropping sum.

It would prohibit revelation of this confidential information in any form — including, get this, “the publication of works of fiction that contain any mention of the operations of the White House, federal agencies, foreign governments, or other entities interacting with the United States Government that is based on confidential information.”

  WaPo

So...they just leak.  Constantly.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.