New York Times: Trump Campaign Suggests Omarosa Manigault Newman Pay for $1 Million in Ad Spending
New York Times: Trump Campaign Suggests Omarosa Manigault Newman Pay for $1 Million in Ad Spending
The Trump campaign has suggested that Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former White House aide, pay for an ad campaign costing nearly $1 million as a “corrective” remedy for her critical comments about President Trump in her 2018 book and in subsequent interviews.
The recommendation was made in a document filed by the Trump campaign from an expert witness last week as part of an ongoing arbitration case; The Times reviewed the document.
The witness, Eric W. Rose, a crisis management expert, detailed a lengthy advertising proposal across several platforms that would cost just over $846,000. He did not suggest a time frame by which the ad campaign would need to take place. But the proposal mentions several times the impressions Ms. Manigault Newman’s comments could have left with “voters,” and was filed a few weeks before the election. …
Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to the Trump campaign, said Mr. Rose’s document did not constitute a demand for a contribution to the Trump campaign. Rather, she said, “the report evidences the extent of damages suffered by the Trump campaign as a direct result of Ms. Manigault Newman’s breach of her unambiguous contractual obligations.”
Yet campaign finance experts said that if Ms. Manigault Newman were to finance an advertising campaign, it would effectively represent a campaign contribution.
Having her pay for an ad campaign “in my opinion would be an illegally large in-kind contribution to the Trump campaign,” said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at the good-government group Common Cause.
Even if she were just to appear in an ad, without funding it, there would be a value to Ms. Manigault Newman’s time that would almost certainly exceed the $2,800 federal contribution limit, Mr. Ryan said.