--- title: Donald Trump's Non-Disclosure Agreements Are Unusual description: President Donald Trump has again threatened a former staffer by noting that they signed a non-disclosure agreement. canonical: https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-01T17:19:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:02.187Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump's Non-Disclosure Agreements Show a Problem With Loyalty og:description: He again threatened a former staffer over one og:url: https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6221c48d713482b1/698943f3929fad1a63bf2936/cliff-sims-team-of-vipers-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3837 og:image:height: 2158 og:image:alt: cliff-sims-team-of-vipers-review og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump's Non-Disclosure Agreements Show a Problem With Loyalty twitter:description: He again threatened a former staffer over one twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6221c48d713482b1/698943f3929fad1a63bf2936/cliff-sims-team-of-vipers-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump's Threats to Former Staffers Reveal a Problem at the White House > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Why President Trump's Firings Are Not All The Same [Watch (HLS stream): Why President Trump's Firings Are Not All The Same](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QQ934mGx.m3u8) (1:48)  _Published 2018-03-20. A guide to former Trump administration staffers._  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Feb 1, 2019 5:19 PM UTC  in this file photo, Cliff Sims, left, then-Director of White House Message Strategy, stands with Kellyanne Conway, center, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, and former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, right, as they listen to President Donald Trump during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Sims' new Trump tell-all, 'Team of Vipers,' digs into the people who surround the President. in this file photo, Cliff Sims, left, then-Director of White House Message Strategy, stands with Kellyanne Conway, center, senior adviser to President Donald Trump, and former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, right, as they listen to President Donald Trump during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Sims' new Trump tell-all, 'Team of Vipers,' digs into the people who surround the President. Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Feb 1, 2019 5:19 PM UTC Upset by a tell-all book, President Donald Trump has again threatened a former staffer by noting that they signed a non-disclosure agreement, a move that historians say is unprecedented. When former campaign aide and White House communications adviser [Cliff Sims’ book “Team of Vipers”](http://time.com/5512122/team-vipers-review-donald-trump-cliff-sims/) came out this week, Trump tweeted that his former staffer was a “mess” and “nothing more than a gofer,” adding “he signed a non-disclosure agreement.” > [](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1090244651578204160) Lawyers for Trump’s campaign [reportedly filed an arbitration claim against Sims](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-31/trump-campaign-says-former-aide-sims-violated-nda-with-new-book) on Thursday, claiming he violated the agreement by criticizing Trump and revealing private conversations in the book. It was only the latest in a series of times when Trump has alluded to non-disclosure agreements signed by his former campaign aides and staffers or had his lawyers take legal action. Historians say that previous presidents did not threaten to enforce NDAs against former West Wing staffers, who technically work for the U.S. government. It’s unclear if [White House NDAs](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/politics/trump-nondisclosure-agreement.html) are even legally enforceable. “As far as I know, it’s never been tried in the White House,” said Russell Riley, the co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “I’ve never heard if it. I’ve done oral histories back to the Jimmy Carter presidency.” All presidents want to keep their policy deliberations as closely held as they can, and former staffers spilling secrets have always been a concern. But officials with security clearances already are barred by law from releasing classified information, and most staffers are either personally loyal to the president or are careful about what they share to protect their career futures. But Trump hasn’t just targeted Sims. When former “Apprentice” star and White House staffer [Omarosa Manigault Newman released audio recordings](https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/13/politics/omarosa-donald-trump-phone-call-tape/index.html) of conversations with Trump in the White House in advance of the publication of her book “Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House,” Trump wrote on Twitter that Manigault Newman had signed a non-disclosure agreement. > [](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1029038164248338432) Lawyers for Trump also reportedly sent a letter to [Steve Bannon](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/04/whats-in-the-nondisclosure-agreement-bannon-signed-and-could-trump-actually-win-a-lawsuit/?utm%5Fterm=.c75ec869c6d8) last year saying Bannon had violated an agreement not to disparage Trump by talking to author Michael Wolff for Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury: Inside the White House.” The limits of such agreements are already being tested in court. In August, a New York judge ruled that nondisclosure agreement signed by [a former campaign staffer named Jessica Denson](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/402356-judge-rules-white-house-confidentiality-agreement-is-limited-in-scope) could not force into private arbitration her lawsuit alleging sexual discrimination and harassment while working on the Trump campaign. Riley said the threats show that Trump does not have the same level of trust and professionalism with his staff that his predecessor had. “If you properly vet people, there is an expectation that you would only bring people into the White House who would use their best judgement. It would never occur to sign an NDA to do what they should be doing out of their own conscience and professionalism,” he said. Apart from that, he argued that it strikes against the idea that White House staffers are public servants. “These people are not working for Donald Trump, they are working for the citizens of the United States of America,” he said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/"},"headline":"President Trump's Threats to Former Staffers Reveal a Problem at the White House","datePublished":"2019-02-01T17:19:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:02.187Z","description":"President Donald Trump has again threatened a former staffer by noting that they signed a non-disclosure agreement.","url":"https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/","keywords":["White House","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6221c48d713482b1/698943f3929fad1a63bf2936/cliff-sims-team-of-vipers-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6221c48d713482b1/698943f3929fad1a63bf2936/cliff-sims-team-of-vipers-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"cliff-sims-team-of-vipers-review","caption":"Cliff Sims, Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer","creditText":"Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/","name":"President Trump's Threats to Former Staffers Reveal a Problem at the White House"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Why President Trump's Firings Are Not All The Same","description":"A guide to former Trump administration staffers.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/QQ934mGx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-03-20T16:16:28.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QQ934mGx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/","duration":"PT1M48S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5518135/donald-trump-non-disclosure-agreements/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```