Former Trump political aide and reality TV star Omarosa Manigault Newman has been ordered to pay a whopping fee of more than $61,000 for failing to file a financial disclosure report after she was fired from her position with the Trump Administration.
Manigault Newman, who was terminated from her communications adviser role in the White House Office of Public Liason in 2017, claimed that she didn’t have enough time to file the disclosure because her position was revoked so suddenly. The Apprentice star said that the swift termination did not allow her enough time to obtain the necessary documents from her personal files within the White House that were required for the process, Politico reported. Additionally, the star argued that she delayed the disclosure process because of a debate over her official last day at the White House.
On Mar. 15, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon denied Manigault Newman’s argument and slammed the former conservative news pundit with a penalty in the amount of $61,585. The 48-year-old was required to submit the documentation at least 30 days after being terminated, The Hill noted, however, she didn’t actually submit the paperwork until a few months after The Justice Department sued her in June 2019. According to the publication, Manigault Newman finally filed the disclosure on Sept. 11, 2019.
Following her conviction, Judge Richard Leon issued a statement about the ruling.
“Manigault Newman willfully violated the [Ethics in Government Act],” Leon wrote in a 15-page opinion on Tuesday. The judge noted Manigault Newman was “well aware of her obligation” to make her final disclosures and had “received countless reminders. This conduct establishes a willful violation.”
