Trump Seeks $10M From Former Staffer Over Nondisclosure Agreement

Donald Trump is insisting that aides stick to confidentiality agreements — so much so that he is suing a former campaign consultant for $10 million, his lawyer said.

“He’s violated his agreement and you know we have taken swift and appropriate action,” Alan Garten, executive vice president and general counsel at The Trump Organization, told USA TODAY. “We intend to pursue this to the very end.”

Court documents obtained by the Associated Press indicate Sam Nunberg has been accused by Trump of leaking confidential information to reporters in violation of his non-disclosure agreement. Nunberg, in response, accuses the Republican candidate of “a misguided attempt to cover up media coverage of an apparent affair” between senior campaign staffers.

Reports the AP:

“The document cited a New York Post story about a public quarrel between the staffers published last month.

“The legal dispute reflects Trump’s efforts to aggressively protect the secrecy of his campaign’s inner workings. The case is spelled out in court documents that sought to block private arbitration proceedings that Trump initiated in May.”

Garten called Nunberg “a disgruntled former consultant” and said that after the original arbitration was filed “Nunberg asked for his job back.”

(h/t USA Today, Page Six)

Reality

Sam Nunberg has filed sensational legal papers against the presidential hopeful’s campaign, alleging he was wrongly accused of leaking a story to Page Six about a “lovers’ quarrel” between the mogul’s publicist and campaign manager.

Nunberg, who worked as a strategic adviser for Trump but was fired last year, claims in the papers that, because he then endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign is “attempting to bring a frivolous and retaliatory arbitration proceeding against me essentially to punish me and shut me up.”

Things further soured between him and the Trump campaign after Page Six exclusively reported in May on a public “screaming row” between the mogul’s polarizing former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, 42, and Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, 27, who deny rumors they had an affair. Lewandowski is married with four kids.

Nunberg says in his response filed in New York Supreme Court,

“The Trump campaign is misguidedly and improperly attempting to use the sword of private arbitration proceeding against me to silence media coverage of a loud and angry argument on a public street between its former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski … and a female Trump campaign staffer, concerning their sordid and apparently illicit affair, which … was witnessed by another Trump campaign staffer, as reported in the New York Post, Page Six.”

Nunberg also claims that there were many witnesses to the “lovers’ quarrel” that took place at 61st Street and Third Avenue, which he describes as “a public inappropriate display by the former campaign manager and, upon information and belief, his paramour.”

He continues, “I did not provide the New York Post with any information concerning that embarrassing and lurid event … [I] learned of it … long after my consulting agreement had been terminated … This tawdry public incident between Mr. Lewandowski and a female Trump campaign staffer occurred well after the termination of my consulting agreement.”

Nunberg claims the Trump campaign has falsely used the Page Six story as an excuse to accuse him of breaching his confidentiality agreement. He alleges Lewandowski “used as a pretext an eight year old Facebook post to have me terminated … [he] and other staff members colluded to leak the Facebook post to the press.” Nunberg denied making the racially charged posts about the Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter and another calling President Obama a “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser.”

However several websites had reported and captured Nunberg’s many racist social media posts.

Of his decision to back Cruz, Nunberg — who started working for Trump in 2011 and says he ghost-wrote many of the outspoken mogul’s political tweets — adds, “I am ready, willing and able to defend myself against such claims … the ridiculous nature of the Trump campaign’s irrational and vindictive assault against me simply for exercising my fully justified and constitutionally protected rights to change political allegiance and vote as I choose.”

Nunberg has filed a motion to stay the confidential arbitration, initiated by the Donald Trump campaign organizations. Nunberg also wants to make the proceedings public.

CNN’s Corey Lewandowski Is Still Being Paid By Donald Trump

Former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is still being paid by the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s campaign while simultaneously drawing a salary as a CNN contributor to discuss the candidate on-air, according to the network.

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and host Don Lemon noted that Lewandowski is “still receiving severance from the Trump campaign” while introducing him in July 11 and July 12 segments.

These references appear to be the first time CNN has disclosed the severance payments even though Lewandowski was hired nearly three weeks ago, raising questions about when the network became aware that its commentator was still being paid by his former employer.

Media observers have harshly criticized CNN over Lewandowski’s hiring pointing to his non-disclosure and likely non-disparagement agreements with the Trump campaign as “profoundly disturbing” ethical conflicts. Since his hiring, Lewandowski has by his own admission continued to advise the Trump campaign, even pushing a camera away from the candidate during a campaign stop.

In his on-air appearances, Lewandowski has acted more like a spokesman for the campaign than as an independent commentator, defending all of Trump’s actions in a way that, as one Washington Post reporter noted, indicates he “has not yet transitioned out of his role as a Trump employee.”

That pattern continued during the segments in which CNN revealed that he is receiving severance from the campaign. In his New Day appearance on July 11, Lewandowski defended Trump from criticism of his reference to a perceived supporter as “my African-American” by stating, “The way Mr. Trump talks, anybody who knows him, and I know him very well, he’d say, my Corey. You’re my Corey. That’s a term of endearment. It’s not a pejorative term.” In his CNN Tonight appearance on July 12, his statements about Trump’s beliefs about race in America led Lemon to interject, “don’t give me talking points.”

The network’s defenders have pointed out that political operatives regularly join the ranks of paid on-air pundits, and noted that CNN also employs contributors with ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. But employing a contributor who continues to be paid by the candidate whose performance and positions he is being asked to analyze appears unprecedented.

(h/t Media Matters)

Reality

As campaign manager, Lewandowski banned news organizations from rallies and maintained Trump’s media blacklist, which includes The Washington Post, as well as BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, Politico, the Des Moines Register and many others. His hostility included CNN at least once. Noah Gray, a CNN producer covering Trump, tweeted last November that as he filmed the crowd’s reaction to a protester at a rally, Lewandowski ordered him “inside the pen or I’ll pull your credentials.”

Media

Media Matters

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Calls Trump a ‘Faker,’ He Says She Should Resign

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s well-known candor was on display in her chambers late Monday, when she declined to retreat from her earlier criticism of Donald Trump and even elaborated on it.

He is a faker,” she said of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, going point by point, as if presenting a legal brief. “He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. … How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.”

She has been surprisingly outspoken about the presidential election in recent days, starting Friday, when she told The Associated Press “everything would be up for grabs” if Donald Trump were to win the White House.

In an interview published Sunday, she told The New York Times that she couldn’t picture America under a Trump presidency.

“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she said. “For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”

“At first I thought it was funny,” she said of Trump’s early candidacy. “To think that there’s a possibility that he could be president … ” Her voice trailed off gloomily.

“I think he has gotten so much free publicity,” she added, drawing a contrast between what she believes is tougher media treatment of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and returning to an overriding complaint: “Every other presidential candidate has turned over tax returns.”

Trump responded Wednesday morning by calling on Ginsburg to resign.

Ginsburg was appointed to the high court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, and is now the senior member of the liberal wing and leading voice countering conservative Chief Justice Roberts. She has drawn a cult-like following among young people who have nicknamed her The Notorious R.B.G., a play on American rapper The Notorious B.I.G.

(h/t CNN, Politico)

Reality

In the case of Trump v. Ginsburg, The New York Times and Washington Post’s editorial boards are siding with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Put simply, the Times ruled that Trump is right. “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling,” its editorial board wrote Wednesday.

Following Trump’s criticism of a federal judge over his Mexican heritage, the Times found it “baffling that Justice Ginsburg would choose to descend toward his level and call her own commitment to impartiality into question,” the newspaper wrote. “Washington is more than partisan enough without the spectacle of a Supreme Court justice flinging herself into the mosh pit.”

The Washington Post concurred with the Times’ opinion and even Ginsburg’s statements to the media, which the newspaper said it didn’t find surprising.

“However valid her comments may have been, though, and however in keeping with her known political bent, they were still much, much better left unsaid by a member of the Supreme Court,” its editorial board wrote.

The Post cited the Code of Conduct for U.S. judges, which states that judges shouldn’t publicly endorse or oppose any candidate for public office, and argued that any politicization — real or not — undermines the public’s faith in an impartial court.

“As journalists, we generally favor more openness and disclosure from public figures rather than less,” the Post wrote. “Yet Justice Ginsburg’s off-the-cuff remarks about the campaign fall into that limited category of candor that we can’t admire, because it’s inconsistent with her function in our democratic system.”

Trump: I Can ‘Relate’ to African-Americans

Donald Trump said that he can “relate it really very much to myself” when African-Americans say “the system is rigged” against them. He cited his own insurgent primary campaign for the White House.

“When I ran for president, I could see what is going on with the system. And the system is rigged,” Trump explained.

“You can’t truly understand what’s going on unless you’re African-American,” he also cautioned.

The presumptive GOP nominee made the comments in the middle of an interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, who repeatedly asked him about race relations in the U.S. Throughout the interview, Trump struck a balanced, arguably muddled note: He sharply criticized both the Black Lives Matter movement and the police officers who were recently filmed shooting African-American men.

“Sadly, there would seem to be,” Trump said when O’Reilly asked him whether there’s “a problem between blacks and whites in America, generally speaking.”

He blamed President Obama at least partially for the situation.

“It’s getting more and more obvious. And it’s very sad. It’s very sad.” Trump continued. “And hopefully it can be healed. We have a divider as a president. He’s the great divider, and I’ve said it for a long time. And it’s probably not been much worse at any time,” he added.

(h/t Yahoo)

Reality

Trump’s mind-boggling analogy and clumsy attempt to pander to African Americans comes amid his disastrous polling numbers from minority groups and young people who believe he is a racist.

Media

Trump’s new theme song:

Donald Trump Claims He’s Seen People Calling for Moments of Silence for the Dallas Shooter

During two separate discussions of Black Lives Matters protests on Tuesday, Donald Trump claimed that people have called for moments of silence for Micah Johnson, the gunman who killed five police officers in Dallas and injured nine others, without specifying who or where.

On an O’Reilly Factor segment filmed earlier in the day, Trump expressed disgust with the actions of the officers who shot Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and said it “could be” that police treat African-Americans differently, but criticized the Black Lives Matter movement as “dividing America.” Trump then said:

“I saw what they’ve said about police at various marches and rallies. I’ve seen moments of silence called for for this horrible human being who shot the policemen.”

Asked by the Fox News host if there was a divide between blacks and whites in America, Trump used this as an example of how “there would seem to be.” Then Trump went on to say:

“It’s getting more and more obvious and it’s very sad, very sad. When somebody called for a moment of silence to this maniac that shot the five police, you just see what’s going on. It’s a very, very sad situation.”

Trump repeated the claim Tuesday night, saying at a rally in Indiana:

“The other night you had 11 cities potentially in a blow-up stage. Marches all over the United States—and tough marches. Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac! And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer!”

(h\t Gawker)

Reality

No news reports appear to corroborate his claim and on social media, news agencies have reached out to the Trump campaign for comment and have not yet heard back.

  • Gawker could only find two posts asking for a moment of silence for Johnson. No video.
  • Talking Points Memo found searches on social media for people making such calls came up short, with no evidence of video.
  • ABC News has been able to find one person who posted on two of his social media accounts calling for a moment of silence, but no evidence of video.
  • Trump advisor Sam Clovis was forced to admit he had not witnessed what Trump said he has witnessed on CNN.

This is not the first time Donald Trump has made false claims of ethnic groups praising a tragedy.

In November 2015, Trump repeatedly defended his debunked claim that thousands of Muslims were celebrating in the streets of New Jersey after 9/11. Of course this also turned out to not be true.

Media

Full speech, 7/12/16

Trump Defends Constitution Articles That Do Not Exist

Republican Rep. Mark Sanford said Friday that Donald Trump has a “callous disregard for details” that was on full display when the GOP presidential candidate told a private meeting of House Republicans he would fiercely defend articles of U.S. Constitution that don’t exist.

“I think what a number of us have been concerned about is a pattern of laxity with regard to details,” Sanford told CNN in an interview, explaining that details are critical to good governance, one day after he was part of a group meeting with the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. “It is the details that really matter in impacting people’s lives. It is the details that matter frankly in any legislative negotiation.”

The South Carolinian lawmaker, who has been critic of Trump, said that lack of respect for details could make it difficult for the businessman to be a successful president.

“I wasn’t particularly impressed,” Sanford told reporters after Thursday’s meeting at an event. “I think it was the normal stream of consciousness that’s long on hyperbole and short on facts. At one point there was mentioned — somebody asked about, you know, Article I powers and what would you do to protect them and you know, I think his response was ‘I want to protect Article I, Article II, Article XII — go down the list.’ As we both know there is no Article XII.”

Trump’s answer came in response to a question from a House Republican about whether Trump as president would defend the prerogatives of Congress that are laid out in Article I of the Constitution. The issue is highly important to lawmakers who are frustrated by the powers of the presidency, which are defined in Article II of the Constitution but that have expanded in recent years by the increased use of executive authority.

There are a total of just seven articles to the Constitution although there are many more amendments to the founding document, which could be what Trump was referring to accidentally.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNN for a comment about the apparent gaffe in the meeting or Sanford’s concerns.

When Trump made his comments “a number of people looked around at each other at that point with a little bit of a quizzical or curious eye,” Sanford told CNN Friday.
Sanford, who still hasn’t decided if he will back his party’s presumptive nominee, acknowledged Trump has successfully connected with voters even as he glosses over the minutia of governing.

“I would say we all love broad sweeping statements. They’re pleasant. At times they’re amusing, at times they’re interesting, but in terms of making a difference in people’s lives, it’s the details that matter,” Sanford said.

Sanford also defended Trump.

While “there seems to be a deliberate lack of detail” from the candidate, there is not “malfeasance” — as Sanford said was on display Thursday in a House committee that was examining Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email usage while running the State Department.

“What we’re left with is a Faustian choice between malfeasance and very callous disregard for details,” Sanford said.

In the meeting with House Republicans, Trump repeatedly stressed the importance of a Republican winning the White House because of the balance of power on the Supreme Court. In the end, Sanford suggested that issue might be enough to tilt him to vote for Trump, something initially he didn’t think he would do.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Sadly this is not the first time Donald Trump displayed a lack of understanding of the United States Constitution, government functions, or how laws work.

 

 

Trump Attempts To Use Police Tragedy As a Photo Op

Bill Bratton. | AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

After calling off campaign events in the wake of the ambush killings of five Dallas police officers, Donald Trump reached out to NYPD officials, NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton said Friday.

A rep from Donald Trump’s Manhattan organization asked the city’s top cop to let the candidate speak to a 3 p.m. roll call at the NYPD Midtown North Precinct. But Commissioner Bratton strongly rejected the idea, which a police source said came from Trump’s head of security Keith Schiller.

During a press conference at police headquarters, Bratton told reporters “there may have been a request made to attend a roll call” by Trump and that there was “an inquiry from Senator Clinton about setting up a call to be briefed on what’s going on here in New York.”

The commissioner said he would be “more than happy” to speak with either presumptive presidential nominee but stressed his interest is in “staying out of the politics of the moment.”

“If Mr. Trump wants to speak to me, I’d be happy to brief him on what we’re doing. [If] Senator Clinton wants to speak to me, I’d be very happy to brief her on what we’re doing,” Bratton said. “But we’re not in the business of providing photo-ops for candidates.”

Donald Trump’s campaign disputed Bratton’s assertion.

“Mr. Trump and the campaign did not reach out with a request to address a roll call,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in an email to POLITICO.

Asked whether Trump reached out to address the officers in any capacity, Hicks responded, “No.”

(h/t Politico, NY Daily News)

Reality

This incident devolved into he-said-she-said hearsay. You will have to consider each source. The commissioner will address the press again this afternoon, along with the mayor and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. So stay tuned for updates.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton previously questioned Donald Trump ability to match President Obama’s record of killing terrorists and was critical of Trump’s response to the Orlando shootings.

While Trump has a long record of not making truthful or accurate statements. Trump’s head of security Keith Schiller was involved in smacking a protester at the start of Trump’s campaign.

Trump: Dallas Shootings Are ‘Attack on Our Country’

Hours after five Dallas police officers were killed and seven others wounded during a protest of this week’s shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, presumptive Republican nomination Donald Trump reacted with a call for peace.

Trump tweeted Friday morning:

Trump’s campaign later announced that his event scheduled on Friday in Miami had been canceled, and released a statement condemning the “horrific execution-style shootings” as “an attack on our country.”

“It is a coordinated, premeditated assault on the men and women who keep us safe. We must restore law and order. We must restore the confidence of our people to be safe and secure in their homes and on the street. The senseless, tragic deaths of two motorists in Louisiana and Minnesota reminds us how much more needs to be done,” Trump said in the statement, referring to the police shootings earlier this week, although the shooting in Louisiana happened outside of a convenience store, not in a vehicle as in Minnesota. (The statement was later corrected to read “two people.”) “This morning I offer my thoughts and prayers for all of the victims’ families, and we pray for our brave police officers and first responders who risk their lives to protect us every single day.”

“Our nation has become too divided. Too many Americans feel like they’ve lost hope. Crime is harming too many citizens. Racial tensions have gotten worse, not better. This isn’t the American Dream we all want for our children. This is a time, perhaps more than ever, for strong leadership, love and compassion. We will pull through these tragedies.”

(h/t Politico)

Reality

Donald Trump sounded reasonable, made measured statements, and appeared to try his hand at unity during a very difficult time in our country. This is the exact type of speech we should hear from our political leaders during a tragedy.

However, while Trump’s call for a nation to come together and promoting racial unity is right on the mark, it is missing the fact that since announcing his candidacy, Trump has used fear mongering, race-baiting, and strong man tactics to propel himself to the Republican nominee for the presidency. We’ve cataloged a long list of Trump’s racist comments on Hispanics, Middle Eastern-Americans, African-Americans, Hebrews, Asians-Americans, and foreigners, that marginalizes minority groups and gives a greater platform to white supremacists.

For example, compare Trump’s scripted statement and his “Make America Safe Again” video with his remarks only three weeks prior in response to the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

Donald Trump used divisive statements in an attempt to pit the LGBT community against the Muslim community:

“[Hillary Clinton] can’t claim to be supportive of [LGBT] communities while trying to increase the number of people coming in who want to oppress them.”

And placed the blame for the attack at the feet of Muslim-Americans:

“Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad—and they do know where they are.”

Trump then renewed his call for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States, incorrectly identified the New York born shooter as an Afghan, and made other various misleading statements.

Media

Trump Used a Frozen Meme From a White Supremacist to Defend His Other Star of David Meme

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday tweeted an image of a Disney book featuring a six-pointed star in an attempt to draw comparisons to an anti-Hillary Clinton image he tweeted this past weekend.

“Where is the outrage for this Disney book? Is this the ‘Star of David’ also? Dishonest media!” he tweeted, with an image of a book from Disney’s “Frozen.”

The book features a six-pointed star with the words “With 50 stickers!” written on it.

(h/t The Hill, Vox)

Reality

As we explained in detail before, the star Trump used in his original tweet is not a sheriff’s badge. And original meme Trump shared wasn’t controversial just because it used a 6-pointed star, like this Frozen sticker book cover does, but specifically because the meme was created by a white supremacist, implied antisemitic stereotypes with the Star of David on a bed of money,  and originally posted on a neo-Nazi message board.

What is further concerning is the the Frozen meme Donald Trump used to defend was taken from a Twitter user who is part of the white supremacist alt-right movement.

Donald Trump Jr. Likes Tweet From White Supremacist

Today, Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray noticed that Donald Trump Jr., who has been taking a large role in his father’s campaign, had “liked” a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” movement on Twitter:

The user, @Ricky_Vaughn99, his Twitter timeline is absolutely full of hateful racist and anti-Semitic tweets; there’s no way Trump Jr. could possibly have missed it. Yet he chose to follow this user.

Some recent tweets from Ricky_Vaugn99, who’s being followed by the son of the Republican Party’s nominee for president of the US, include:

(h/t Buzzfeed, Little Green Footballs)

Reality

Journalists have noticed that Donald Trump Jr. follows and retweets many known white supremacists in the alt-right movement on his Twitter account, including users The Occidental Observer, @Bidenshairplugs and @Ricky_Vaughn99.

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