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Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth arrives at the the BET awards on Tuesday June 24, 2008 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles) Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth arrives at the the BET awards on Tuesday June 24, 2008 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth arrives at the the BET awards on Tuesday June 24, 2008 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

By Katie Akin August 23, 2018

Was Omarosa working with the Clintons?

Omarosa Manigault Newman was known on The Apprentice for her dramatic flair and ruthless ambition. President Donald Trump hired his former contestant to work on his campaign and then in the White House.

Now that she’s not part of the administration, those reality TV tactics have come to haunt him.

Omarosa re-entered the headlines in August with her book Unhinged, which recounts a tumultuous year in the Trump White House. She also claimed to have heard a tape in which Trump used racial slurs, and then provided CBS with a recording of Trump campaign staffers discussing the incident. (On Aug. 14, Trump tweeted that Omarosa was "a lowlife" and "a dog.")

The drama led some websites friendly to Trump to speculate about Omarosa’s motivations.

One article written by the Young Conservatives and posted on Chicks on the Right has the headline, "Omarosa exposed: Turns out she was actually working for Hillary."

The article was flagged as part Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

We decided to investigate whether Omarosa "was actually working" for Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. It turns out the connections are nothing new.

A tumultuous past

The headline of the article implies a new revelation about Manigault Newman’s connections to the Clintons by saying she was "exposed." But the body of the article focuses on Omarosa’s previous connections to the Clintons, which were already public knowledge.

There is no evidence that Omarosa double-crossed Trump in favor of Hillary Clinton.

In 2000, she briefly worked for President Bill Clinton in the White House. After moving between jobs in the administration, she was fired.

Featured Fact-check

Omarosa emerged as a reality television star in 2004, making her name as a contestant on Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice. She quickly became known as a reality TV villain, fighting with the other contestants and creating chaos within the competition. She was invited back to The Apprentice twice, and also participated in Celebrity Big Brother.

During her early career as a reality TV contestant, Omarosa openly supported the Clintons and would mention her experience in the White House alongside them. In a 2015 Washington Post article, she identified as a "die-hard" Hillary supporter.

In 2018, while competing on Celebrity Big Brother after leaving the Trump administration, she said that she had done work on the Ready For Hillary super PAC before joining the Trump campaign: "It wasn’t hard when (Trump) called me and said ‘Can you be on board?’ because I had just been used and abused by the Ready for Hillary organization."

We contacted Chicks on the Right to ask if they had proof that Omarosa was working for Hillary while serving as Trump’s White House director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison. They responded with a quote from Nick Arama, who wrote the story.

"Our added commentary is only opinion and our commentary doesn't claim Omarosa was simultaneously working for Hillary while working in the Trump White House," he said. "We think many people do find it troubling that she was working Ready for Hillary in 2015, just one year before the election."

They also clarified that the "added commentary is only opinion."

After we contacted them, Chicks on the Right added a clarification at the end of the article: "We’re not claiming that we have evidence that Omarosa was working for Hillary during her work for Trump. We are noting how soon in time that she worked for Hillary before she worked for Trump."

Our ruling

The Young Conservatives article featured the headline, "Omarosa Exposed: Turns Out She Was Actually Working For Hillary."

This headline may mislead readers into believing Omarosa was a double-agent during her time in the Trump administration. There is no evidence this is true.

The article calls into question Omarosa’s loyalty to Trump from his campaign to her year in the White House given her previous record of supporting Hillary Clinton and working for Bill Clinton. After she had a falling-out with Hillary Clinton’s campaign organizers, Omarosa was recruited by Trump to help his campaign.

The claim is partially accurate but missing substantial context. We this claim Half True.

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Half True
Omarosa Exposed: Turns out she was actually working for Hillary
in a blog post
Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Our Sources

Young Conservatives, "Omarosa Exposed: Turns Out She Was Actually Working For HILLARY," Aug. 22, 2018

Washington Post, "Has Donald Trump lost the 'Apprentice' vote too?" July 8, 2015

Independent, "Trump calls Omarosa a 'dog' in wild twitter attack," Aug. 14, 2018

People, "Omarosa's long history of being fired," Apr. 8, 2004

YouTube, "Omarosa moments from Apprentice Season 1," Feb. 22, 2007

Variety, "Omarosa talks leaving Hillary Clinton's campaign for Donald Trump's on 'Big Brother: Celebrity Edition,'" Feb. 18, 2018

GOP tweet, Aug. 12, 2018

The Week, "The Republican Party declares war on Omarosa," Aug. 13, 2018

Email interview with Miriam Weaver, founder of Chicks on the Right, Aug. 22, 2018

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More by Katie Akin

Was Omarosa working with the Clintons?

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