Despite an official statement from the White House claiming Omarosa Manigault Newman would resign on January 20th, subsequent reports by multiple outlets have suggested the former The Apprentice star was fired. CNN’s White House correspondent, April Ryan, tweeted throughout the day on Wednesday, saying her former friend was actually the cause of “a lot of drama at the White House” on Tuesday. In subsequent tweets, Ryan said Chief of Staff John Kelly “did the firing” and Omarosa was “escorted out of [the] building and off campus.” The New York Times‘ Yamiche Alcindor tweeted similar claims.
Even so, Ryan later tweeted that “the White House still contends Omarosa signed a resignation letter.” And when another reporter contacted the director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison directly and “asked if she was fired or resigned,” Omarosa apparently offered to call him back and “hung up.” Ryan later appeared on CNN to discuss the story, telling Wolf Blitzer that Omarosa reportedly tried to get into the White House residence to confront Trump after Kelly fired her:
“She asked Gen. Kelly, ‘Well does the president know?’ And Gen. Kelly said ‘Yes, the president has signed off.’ She said, ‘I wanted to call the president.’ And Gen. Kelly said, ‘This is not going to the principal’s office. It’s done.’ So once that piece stopped, a little later on, she tried to go see the president. She tried to go into the residence. And, mind you, Gen. Kelly had cut off her walk-in access to the Oval Office and things of that nature. Security alerted Gen. Kelly, he came back down, and told Secret Service to take her out of there. She was escorted off the property.”
Meanwhile, BuzzFeed News is reporting that the prominent African-American supporter of Trump’s presidency had become “increasingly fed up” with the administration’s treatment of several prominent racial issues:
“She struggled with being an African-American senior staffer, with all the racial incidents in the White House, and I think it was starting to weigh on her,” the official said.
The source said Manigault-Newman wanted to leave the White House after Charlottesville, where Trump sympathized with the white supremacists who marched to preserve Confederate monuments, leading to the dead of one counterprotester. Manigault-Newman went silent in the days and weeks after the rally, the source said
Whatever the case may be, it’s probably time for everyone to sip some tea and take a nap.
(Via CNN and BuzzFeed News)