Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in front of his airplane, March 12, 2016 in Vandalia, Ohio.
Brooks Kraft | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, as a part of a $450,000 settlement of a class-action lawsuit by a former campaign aide, agreed to void non-disclosure agreements that a whole lot of campaign employees and volunteers had signed as a condition of their work.
The deal, revealed Friday in a court filing, ended a lawsuit filed by former Trump campaign aide Jessica Denson in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The settlement effectively invalidates all other NDAs signed by employees of the Trump campaign, potentially opening the door for them to publicly discuss events related to the 2016 race, and to Trump himself, without fear of probably financially ruinous legal retaliation by him.
Trump, who defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton within the 2016 race for the White House, for many years has required individuals who work for him to sign NDAs. In November, he announced that he’ll seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“This compromise is actually a complete victory for Jessica Denson, and all 2016 Trump campaign employees,” said David Bowles, a lawyer for Denson.
“The Trump NDA is invalid and unenforceable, and the campaign employees should never have needed to live under its shadow,” Bowles said.
Representatives for Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the settlement, which was first reported Friday by the Bloomberg news service.
Lawyers for the campaign had said in a court filing that “the Campaign represents that by itself volition it notified all of those employees, contractors, and volunteers in a signed writing that they’re ‘not sure by these non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions.'”
Last April, an arbitrator ordered Trump’s 2016 campaign to pay $1.3 million in legal fees to Omarosa Manigault Newman, the previous “Apprentice” star whom the campaign unsuccessfully sued over a book about her tenure as a White House advisor.
That award got here months after the identical arbitrator ruled that the non-disclosure agreement she had signed while working on Trump’s campaign was invalid under Latest York law, citing the choice regarding Denson’s agreement.
Denson filed her lawsuit in 2020, saying that the Trump campaign tried to silence her after she went public with allegations that she was the goal of abusive treatment and sexual discrimination by one other member of the campaign.
Denson’s lawyers in court filings said the NDAs that she and others had signed were too broad under the law.
The attorneys cited language that forestalls the disclosure of data “that Mr. Trump insists remain private” and which blocks anything that may very well be “demean[ing] or disparag[ing] publicly” about him.
Judge Paul Gardephe in a March 2021 ruling declared the non-disclosure and non-disparagement provisions invalid for Denson, setting a possible precedent for future cases regarding the NDAs.
The Trump campaign can pay $450,000 within the settlement, the overwhelming majority of which is able to cover Denson’s lawyers’ fees and costs.
Denson herself will get $25,000 under the deal.
Prior to the settlement, the 2016 Trump campaign said it might release all employees, contractors and volunteers from any non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreements.
Before the deal was finalized, Trump’s campaign attempted to seal the monetary terms of the settlement on the grounds that it could hurt its ability to barter similar legal settlements in the long run.
Gardephe denied that request last month.
