Former Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman won’t be allowed to get testimony from former President Donald Trump, former Trump chief of staff John Kelly or a member of the White House counsel’s office in a lawsuit she faces related to her exit from the government, a federal judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday.
Newman faces a 2019 lawsuit from the Justice Department that alleges she failed to file a financial disclosure report after Trump fired her.
Her attorneys had sought to depose Trump because they claimed the administration sued the former “Apprentice” contestant out of Trump’s personal retaliation.
But Judge Richard Leon of the DC District Court wrote on Wednesday that Newman hadn’t made a strong enough case that she could only get the information needed for her defense from Trump and the top officials around him. Even though Trump has left the White House, he and his top advisers still have some protection, Leon decided.
“The need to protect the integrity of the underlying decision-making process, and encourage public service by protecting officials from ‘indiscriminate depositions,’ continue to persist after the official leaves government service,” Leon wrote in a 17-page opinion.
He added that the former President and cabinet-level officials can be protected under this standard. “Defendant has not carried her burden of demonstrating that deposing former President Trump is appropriate. Unfortunately for defendant, even assuming former President Trump has first-hand knowledge about how this case was referred to the Department of Justice, this information is irrelevant to any claim or defense in this case,” Leon wrote.
However, Leon said Newman’s legal defense team could depose a Justice Department trial attorney who had spoken to her about boxes of documents of hers kept at the White House.
This comes as several other lawsuits from former government employees against former Trump-era top officials still percolate in court and could prompt fights over testimony of former top Trump administration officials. Those include lawsuits from former FBI officials Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page against the Justice Department, and a case where the Justice Department is suing former national security adviser John Bolton.
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