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.
