Lawsuit alleges Trump campaign paid women less than men

A court filing Monday alleges President Trump’s 2016 campaign paid female employees, including former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, less than men.

The filing, which was part of a broader lawsuit, cites an analysis it says found that, except for a “small handful” of senior employees, women working on the campaign were paid an average of $3,865 per month compared to an average of $4,568 for men, an 18.2 percent gap.

{mosads}The lawsuit alleges the Trump campaign “maintained a common policy … of paying female employees less than their male counterparts for the same or similar work.”

Former Trump campaign worker Alva Johnson, who filed the original suit in federal court in Tampa, Fla., alleges discrimination on the basis of gender and race. 

In the filing, Johnson asks to be named the lead plaintiff for a collective action by other former Trump campaign employees alleging they were paid less than their male counterparts. The lawsuit claims she was paid $3,000 a month between January and August 2016 and $4,000 for the remainder of her time with the campaign, which it says was “considerably less than that paid to male Campaign staff who had the same responsibilities as she did and lower even than male Campaign staff who had fewer responsibilities than she did.”

The filing asks the court to require that Trump’s campaign identify all potential members of a proposed collective action. Johnson has also accused Trump of forcibly kissing her, which the White House denies and has said is contradicted by eyewitness accounts.

Manigault Newman, who left the White House in December 2017, submitted a declaration backing Johnson Monday. “I believe that Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid me and other similarly situated female employees less than male employees who performed the same or similar job duties under similar working conditions,” she wrote in her filing. Shortly after leaving the White House, Manigault Newman revealed she had covertly recorded several conversations in the White House, including with then-White House chief of staff John Kelly.

“The Trump campaign has never discriminated based on race, ethnicity, gender, or any other basis,” Kayleigh McEnany, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, told The Hill in an email. “Any allegation suggesting otherwise is off base and unfounded.”

–This report was updated at 1:17 p.m.