The Trump campaign's non-disclosure agreements have been voided by a court, opening the door for whistleblowers

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Thomas Colson
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trump nda void court rules whistleblowers
Donald Trump has previously used NDAs to silence his former employees. Getty

  • A federal judge has voided a non-disclosure agreement signed by members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016.

  • A judge ruled that the NDA is too vaguely worded to be legally enforceable.

  • The ruling came in a case brought by former 2016 Trump campaign staffer Jessica Denson, who worked as the campaign's Hispanic outreach director.

  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

A federal judge has overturned a non-disclosure agreement signed by members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, saying that it was too vaguely worded to be legally enforceable.

US District Court Judge Paul Gardephe ruled on Tuesday that the language used in the contract, which all members of the 2016 Trump campaign were required to sign, was so vague that it was not enforceable under US law, Politico reported.

Garderphe's ruling said the non-disclosure provision which campaign staffers were required to sign "is much broader than what the Campaign asserts is necessary to protect its legitimate interests, and therefore is not reasonable."

"The non-disclosure provision's vague, over broad, and undefined terms also render it unduly burdensome," Gardephe wrote in the ruling.

"It is difficult if not impossible for Denson or another Campaign employee to know whether any speech might relate to one of the several hundred potential subjects of the non-disclosure provision."

The ruling came in a case brought by former 2016 Trump campaign staffer Jessica Denson, who worked as the Hispanic outreach director. She claimed that the nondisclosure agreement violated her First Amendment rights by preventing her from criticizing Donald Trump "forever," Insider's Oma Seddiq reported.

Denson filed separate charges on claims of sexual assault and harassment in 2017.

She has repeatedly tried since 2016 to try and overturn the First Amendment ruling. A motion for summary judgment of the case filed in August on behalf of Denson and other campaign staffers said the NDA and non-disparagement contract was "plainly conceived as a tool to silence critics of the President and has repeatedly been used to that end."

Denson told Politico that she believed the NDAs which Trump has used to silence his employees throughout his career had stopped many former campaign staffers from speaking out against the president.

"Just the terms of the NDA were wildly restricting and it completely stifled public debate, truthful public debate about the Trump campaign and presidency, so this is a massive victory," she said.

"NDAs like this are part of the reason why we ended up with a Donald Trump candidacy and presidency in the first place."

Read the original article on Business Insider

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