Corey Lewandowski

Alleged Facts:

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski reportedly said in August if 2018 that the confidentiality agreements Trump required of workers on his campaign and in the White House “probably aren’t enforceable.”

He was quoted as saying, “I don’t know if they’re valid whatsoever.” Lewandowski spoke of the NDAs at a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “I don’t know how you hold a public employee accountable.” And further, “I just don’t know if they’re valid whatsoever,” he said, adding the caveat that he is not an attorney himself. “Other than the disclosure of classified information, which is a crime in and of itself, I don’t know how you hold a public employee, a government employee, accountable to a non-disclosure agreement. I don’t know how that’s enforceable whatsoever.” The video to the right has this full discussion.

He and David Bossie co-wrote, “Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency.” As the book is very favorable to Trump, no known action was served against either of them despite the fact “confidential” information would have been prohibited by one or both under the NDA.

Lewandowski also allegedly said his own experience co-writing a book about his time on the campaign trail — an account mostly laudatory of Trump but filled with unflattering details about his temper tantrums and fast food addiction — shows the NDAs are largely an empty threat. “There was no pushback on the book,” he said. “I was never contacted by the Trump team or Trump attorneys telling me I couldn’t write it. I didn’t have to submit my book to them for their review or consideration.”

Non Disclosure Agreement / Non Disparage Agreement:

Lewandowksi said he signed his own non-disclosure agreement in January of 2015, when he joined Trump’s campaign. He said he heard nothing from Trump’s lawyers after he published a book last year about his experience that was largely complimentary of Trump.

Legal Issues:

Selective Enforcement? Trump allegedly said it himself, “When people are chosen by a man to go into government at high levels and then they leave government and they write a book about a man and say a lot of things that were really guarded and personal, I don’t like that.” He uses NDA’s to regulate speech. Its limits will be tested.