Trump’s 2016 campaign settles nondisclosure case for $450,000

Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign ended a years-long legal battle with a former staffer over nondisclosure agreements he required employees and volunteers to sign.

The campaign agreed to settle the case with former staffer Jessica Denson for $450,000, including $25,000 for Denson and $425,000 to cover costs and legal fees, according to court documents released Friday, according to Bloomberg.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in New York refused to keep the terms of the settlement sealed, putting the deal in jeopardy. The Trump campaign had said keeping the dollar amount of the settlement confidential was a “central part” of its decision to settle the case, Bloomberg reported.

However, attorneys for Denson and the Trump campaign told U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe on Friday that they would pursue the settlement despite being made public.

“Thanks to the tribunal, this is another victory for truth and transparency. The Trump campaign can hide nothing now, not even the real price they agreed to pay for our tireless and successful battle against their enforced silence,” Denson said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Last month, the campaign agreed to release all former staff, volunteers and contractors from nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreements they were forced to sign during Trump’s 2016 presidential run. .

Denson’s attorneys estimate that some 422 people were coerced into signing NDAs in order to work on the campaign.

She and her attorneys were in the process of trying to have the case certified as a class action when they reached the settlement agreement.

In March 2021, a federal court ruled that the 2016 Trump campaign NDAs were invalid and unenforceable.

Denson is not the first former Trump staffer to win an NDA case against the former president’s campaign.

An arbitrator ruled in September 2021 that an NDA signed by Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former ‘The Apprentice’ star who worked as a White House adviser, was also ‘unreasonable’ and ‘unenforceable’.

Trump’s presidential campaign was later ordered by an arbitrator to pay Newman $1.3 million in legal fees for the dispute.

The Trump campaign had filed a lawsuit against Newman with the American Arbitration Association in 2018, claiming that his tell-all book — “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House” — violated its nondisclosure agreement.