Ousted White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman “covered her own butt” by secretly taping conversations with other staff and President Donald Trump by using her personal cellphone, according to Axios.
An anonymous source cited by the news outlet claimed Manigault–Newman always put her phone on record mode before heading into meetings, hiding the device in a purse or her pocket. The source also said she carried not one, but two phones, using her government-issued one to have conversations about work on speaker, then using her personal phone to record them.
Omarosa Manigualt-Newman said she has no regrets about making the secret recordings. (Image courtesy of ABC News)
“[Omarosa] wouldn’t write me on email or text me — many [conversations] happened on Facebook Messenger (she didn’t want what happened to Hillary Clinton and her emails to happen to her),” the source told Axios.
Manigault-Newman’s secret recordings have become the basis of her new tell-all book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.” In it, she makes damaging claims about the president, including that he once used a racial slur on the set of NBC’s “The Apprentice.”
The source said Manigault-Newman made the tapes to “cover her butt,” making sure she had tangible evidence she could refer to later. The former Trump aide has already leaked multiple recordings from the White House in the past month. In one, Chief of Staff John Kelly is heard firing her from her position during a private meeting in the Situation Room. Phones and other devices are supposed to be banned from there, according to The Hill.
Another tape reveals Trump acting completely shocked by news that Manigault-Newman was fired, in which he insists he had no idea Kelly was going to make such a move.
Despite the backlash she’s received, the former aide said she has no regrets about the tapings.
“If I did not have this recording, people would still believe the false, incredible story that I was running around the White House … that I tried to charge the residence of the White House,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month. “People would still think that I was trying to set off alarms. So yes, I recorded myself, and I have no regret about it.”
