Omarosa Tells Acosta About Monthly ‘Hush’ Payments Offer to Keep Quiet About Trump White House While Reacting to Stormy Testimony
Former Donald Trump ally Omarosa Manigault Newman claimed the former president “wants to be locked up” during his hush money trial payment, and she detailed her own alleged “hush money” offer to keep quiet about the Trump White House.
The former Trump White House official joined CNN’s Jim Acosta on Wednesday to react to the testimony of adult film actress Stormy Daniels at the trial in Manhattan on Tuesday. The former president is accused of covering up hush money payments to Daniels to cover up an alleged affair. He’s denied the affair and any knowledge of payments going to Daniels.
Trump has thus far been found in criminal contempt 10 times for violation of a gag order, and the last time Judge Juan Merchan warned jail could become a real possibility if he continues violating. Omarosa told Acosta on Wednesday that she believes her ex-boss “wants” to get a short stint behind bars. Trump previously said he’s ready to go to jail over gag order violations, calling it a “sacrifice.”
“I’m kind of with the judge with him taking a restrained approach to punishing Donald because Donald has already calculated the punishment in his campaign strategy,” she said. “I believe that he wants to be locked up even for a short amount of time so that he can be a martyr and he can use it for fundraising.”
Omarosa said she was not aware of Daniels until the deal and alleged relationship went public. Her relationship to Trump precedes his jump into politics as she worked on multiple unscripted shows with him, including competing on The Apprentice.
Acosta asked Omarosa at one point about “hush money payments of sorts” that she was offered, referring to monthly installments Omarosa claimed she was offered when she left the White House to keep quiet. Omarosa wrote about the alleged offer in her book Unhinged.
“There was an offer from Laura Trump, specifically, for, I believe, $20,000 a month so that I would not talk about the things that I observed or that I experienced on the campaign and apparently this was common practice,” she said, calling it a “pattern of behavior” Donald Trump uses in order to keep people “silent.”
Watch above via CNN.
