Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman claims in her new tell-all memoir of her time in the White House that President Trump would find a way to invalidate his wife’s citizenship if she were to cross him.
According to The Mercury News, Manigault Newman hypothesizes in her new book that Trump would find a way to deport Melania Trump to Slovenia, her native country, if she decided to leave him during his time in office.
“Since Donald is fully aware of however she acquired her permanent citizenship, he could, if there were anything fishy around it, expose the methods and somehow invalidate it,” Manigault Newman wrote. “He is a vindictive man, and I would not put anything past him.”
The first lady reportedly got a green card through a program specifically for people with “extraordinary ability,” known as the elite EB-1 program or the “Einstein visa.” She became a U.S. citizen in 2006.
The program is reserved for people such as academic researchers and multinational business executives, in addition to those with sustained national and international acclaim, The Washington Post reported in March.
“If Melania were to try to pull the ultimate humiliation and leave him while he’s in office, he would find a way to punish her,” Manigault Newman wrote. “This is a man who has said he could pardon himself from the Mueller investigation. Why not pardon himself over an alleged visa payoff?”
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Manigault Newman seemingly suggests that the president thinks his wife allegedly lied in obtaining her initial green card and that he would be willing to expose Melania Trump’s alleged lie to deport her if she were to leave him before his term is up.
Naturalized citizens may be “de-naturalized” and subjected to deportation on several grounds, including falsification or concealment of relevant facts and refusal to testify before Congress.
Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman, responded earlier this week to claims in Manigault Newman’s book that Melania Trump could not wait for her husband’s presidency to be over in order to divorce him.
Grisham said the two women “rarely, if ever, interacted” during Manigault Newman’s tenure at the White House.
“It’s disappointing to her that she is lashing out and retaliating in such a self-serving way, especially after all the opportunities given to her by the President,” Grisham said.
The claim is just the latest bombshell allegation dropped by Manigault Newman in promoting her new book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.”
The report comes on the heels of a number of explosive claims last week stemming from her book, including that the president used the “N-word” and that she was offered $15,000 a month to work on the president’s campaign shortly after she was fired by chief of staff John Kelly.
Manigault Newman released a recording Thursday of Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, offering her the $15,000 a month sum.
Lara Trump later on Thursday hit back at the former White House aide over the secret recording, saying: “I hope it’s all worth it for you, Omarosa, because some things you just can’t put a price on.”
The audio is the fourth separate recording Manigault Newman has released in recent days, including a controversial tape from her firing in the White House situation room.
The former aide has also teased the existence of additional tapes and claims the recordings are necessary to defend her credibility as the White House and Trump continue to attack it. Many of the claims in her book are unsubstantiated.
Trump, in recent days, has labeled Manigault Newman a “dog,” “wacky and deranged,” and a “lowlife.”
His administration has also sought to discredit the former aide, calling her book “riddled with lies.”