Former White House Aide, Cliff Sims Sues President Trump Over ‘Nondisclosure Agreements’
Cliff Sims, a former White House staffer who wrote a tell-all book,
is suing President Donald Trump to stop him from “silencing” Sims as he
promotes his book.
Sims is bringing the suit against Trump “in his official capacity as
President” and is seeking an injunction against the nondisclosure
agreements Trump had him agree to when he worked at the White House.
Sims’ book, “Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump
White House,” released in January, is his candid account of a chaotic
White House.
The book garnered a critical reaction from the President, who
tweeted, “A low level staffer that I hardly knew named Cliff Sims wrote
yet another boring book based on made up stories and fiction. He
pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a
gofer. He signed a nondisclosure agreement. He is a mess!” Mark Zaid,
Sims’ attorney, argues in the lawsuit, “The U.S. Government is
intentionally and unconstitutionally engaging in a subterfuge effort to
use a private entity, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., to do its
bidding to silence Mr. Sims when it is really the intense powers of the
Presidency coming down upon a sole individual.”
The lawsuit requests a court ruling that Trump “may not enforce,
whether directly or through non-U.S. Government cutouts, any
nondisclosure agreements that seek to unconstitutionally infringe upon
his First Amendment rights.” “This action seeks to permanently enjoin
the Defendants from silencing Mr. Sims with respect to any information
he learned during his tenure as a federal employee, and any legal rights
and protections therefrom that may necessarily flow,” the court
document reads.
Zaid asserts in the lawsuit that the US government is “seeking to
impose civil liability against Mr. Sims through application of NDAs that
apply to information Mr. Sims learned solely during his federal
service.”
Share your thoughts