The Trump campaign's nondisclosure agreements have been voided by a court, opening the door for whistleblowers

Authored by businessinsider.com and submitted by boc1892

A federal judge voided a nondisclosure agreement signed by members of Trump's campaign in 2016.

The judge ruled that the NDA was too vaguely worded to be legally enforceable.

The ruling was in a case brought by Jessica Denson, the 2016 campaign's Hispanic outreach director.

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A federal judge on Tuesday overturned a nondisclosure agreement signed by members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.

US District Judge Paul Gardephe ruled that the language in the agreement, which all members of the 2016 campaign were required to sign, was so vague that it was not enforceable under the law, Politico reported.

Gardephe's ruling said the provision was "much broader than what the Campaign asserts is necessary to protect its legitimate interests, and therefore is not reasonable."

"The non-disclosure provision's vague, overbroad, and undefined terms also render it unduly burdensome," the ruling said.

The ruling said it was "difficult if not impossible" for campaign employees "to know whether any speech might be covered by one of the broad categories of restricted information" or "whether that speech might relate to one of the several hundred potential subjects of the non-disclosure provision."

The ruling came in a case brought by Jessica Denson, who was the campaign's Hispanic outreach director. She argued that the nondisclosure agreement violated her First Amendment rights by preventing her from criticizing Trump "forever," Insider's Oma Seddiq reported.

Denson had separately filed a lawsuit against the campaign in 2017 alleging sexual harassment and discrimination. She was ordered to pay $50,000 to the campaign, which had argued that she violated the NDA. She then filed the NDA class-action lawsuit.

A motion for summary judgment in the NDA case filed in July on behalf of Denson and other campaign staffers said the agreement, which has a nondisparagement clause, was "plainly conceived" as a "tool to silence critics of the President, and it has repeatedly been used to that end."

Denson told Politico she believed that the NDAs, which Trump has long used to silence employees and critics, had stopped many former campaign staffers from speaking out.

"Just the terms of the NDA were wildly restricting and it completely stifled public debate, truthful public debate about the Trump campaign and presidency, so this is a massive victory," she said.

"NDAs like this are part of the reason why we ended up with a Donald Trump candidacy and presidency in the first place."

Thatoneguy13130 on March 31st, 2021 at 14:21 UTC »

If Trump put a video out tomorrow that said, "I'm a conman all I've ever done is lie, cheat, and steal to benefit myself". His supporters would say, "The deep state finally got to him."

jasper_bittergrab on March 31st, 2021 at 12:41 UTC »

The NDAs served their purpose, which was to intimidate lowly WH employees from leaking during the administration. We only got contemporaneous dirt from the higher ups with enough power/money to be insulated from the fear of legal action.

Edit to note that the NDAs tossed by the court were from the campaign, not the Administration. Wonder if those will end up negated as well.

idunmessedup on March 31st, 2021 at 12:25 UTC »

Good. Trump’s NDAs have outranked national security repeatedly, and his campaign grift should be uncovered if they are no longer in effect.