Bridgewater
\nFormer presidential adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman has said she secretly recorded conversations she had in the White House, including her firing by chief of staff John Kelly in the high-security Situation Room.<\/p>\n
It was a highly unusual admission, which drew immediate fire from allies of the president and national security experts.<\/p>\n
Parts of her conversation with Kelly were played on the air when she appeared on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d to promote her new book, \u201cUnhinged,\u201d which will be released this week.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press independently listened to the recording of the conversation between Manigault Newman and Kelly, which she said was one of many she\u2019d surreptitiously recorded for her own protection.<\/p>\n
In her book, Manigault Newman paints a damning picture of President Donald Trump, including claiming without evidence that tapes exist of him using the N-word as he filmed his \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d reality series, on which she co-starred.<\/p>\n
Manigault Newman said in the book she had not personally heard the recording. But she told Chuck Todd on Sunday that, after the book had closed, she was able to hear a recording of Trump during a trip to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard his voice as clear as you and I are sitting here,\u201d she said on the show. But the other recording she discussed could prove equally explosive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho in their right mind thinks it\u2019s appropriate to secretly record the White House chief of staff in the Situation Room?\u201d tweeted Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee.<\/p>\n
In the recording, which Manigault Newman quotes extensively in the book, Kelly can be heard saying he wants to talk with Manigault Newman about leaving the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s come to my attention over the last few months that there\u2019s been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you,\u201d Kelly is heard saying, citing her use of government vehicles and \u201cmoney issues and other things\u201d that he compares to offenses that could lead to a court martial in the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we make this a friendly departure … you can look at your time here in the White House as a year of service to the nation and then you can go on without any type of difficulty in the future relative to your reputation,\u201d he goes on to tell Manigault Newman, adding that: \u201cThere are some serious legal issues that have been violated and you\u2019re open to some legal action that we hope, we think we can control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manigault Newman said she viewed the conversation as a \u201cthreat\u201d and defended her decision to covertly record it and other White House conversations. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t have these recordings, no one in America would believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The response from the White House was stinging. \u201cThe very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room, shows a blatant disregard for our national security – and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee,\u201d press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Situation Room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, where the nation\u2019s most consequential foreign policy decisions are made, and staff is not permitted to bring in cell phones or other recording devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never heard of a more serious breach of protocol,\u201d said Ned Price, who served as spokesman of the National Security Council in the Obama administration. \u201cNot only is it not typical, something like this is unprecedented.\u201d Price said there is no one checking staffers for devices at the door, but there is a sign outside the room making clear electronic devices are prohibited.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Situation Room is the inner-most sanctum of a secure campus,\u201d he said, describing the breach as part of a culture of disregarding security protocols in the Trump White House. He also questioning why Kelly would ever choose to have such a meeting there.<\/p>\n
The White House had previously tried to discredit the book, with Sanders calling it \u201criddled with lies and false accusations.\u201d Trump on Saturday labeled Manigault Newman a \u201clowlife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katrina Pierson, an adviser to Trump\u2019s re-election campaign who served as a spokeswoman for his 2016 campaign, said she had never heard Trump use the kind of derogatory language Manigault Newman describes.<\/p>\n
She said in a statement she feels \u201cpity for Omarosa as she embarrasses herself by creating salacious lies and distortions just to try to be relevant and enrich herself by selling books at the expense of the truth. \u2018Unhinged,\u2019 indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also questioned Manigault Newman\u2019s credibility in an interview Sunday on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week.\u201d \u201cThe first time I ever heard Omarosa suggest those awful things about this president are in this book,\u201d she said, noting Manigault Newman \u201cis somebody who gave a glowing appraisal of Donald Trump the businessman, the star of the \u2018The Apprentice,\u2019 the candidate and, indeed, the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bridgewater Former presidential adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman has said she secretly recorded conversations she had in the White House, including her firing by chief of staff John Kelly in the high-security Situation Room. It was a highly unusual admission, which drew immediate fire from allies of the president and national security experts. Parts of her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39139,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39137\/revisions\/39139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}