Trump ordered to pay former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman $1.3 million in legal fees

Former Donald Trump aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who later became a Trump critic, was awarded over $1.3 million to cover legal fees and other costs she incurred as a result of a 2018 lawsuit the former president launched against her.

The judgement was handed down by the American Arbitration Association on Tuesday.

Manigault Newman was sued in 2018 by the Trump campaign, which alleged that her 368-page exposé entitled “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” was equivalent to the former aide breaking the nondisclosure agreement she signed.

Manigault Newman, who first met the former president when she was a contestant on his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” released “Unhinged” after she was fired in December 2017 from her year-long stint working for the Trump administration.

The manuscript included several embarrassing stories about Trump, including one in which Manigault Newman said she walked in on the former president eating a piece of paper while in the Oval Office. 

Further in her memoir, Manigault Newman also claimed Trump said the “N-word” several times, adding that there was a tape from the filming of “The Apprentice” that could corroborate her story. The author said that in 2018 she had a “treasure trove” of unflattering videos, emails, and texts about Trump, and she threatened to release them if he and his team kept trying to dispute the claims she made in her book. 

Back in September of 2021, Trump lost the three-year legal battle attempting to enforce the nondisclosure agreement with Manigault Newman.

The judgement handed down on Tuesday orders the Trump campaign to pay Manigault Newman a total of $1,293,568.75 to go towards her legal fees and another $17,304.73 for additional expenses. As noted in the filing, Manigault Newman first requested an award of more than $3.4 million, but the final amount was based on the judge’s calculation of her lawyer’s billable hours.