Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman said she is ready “anytime, anyplace” to appear as a witness against President Trump, including a potential Senate impeachment trial.
“I have the truth on my side as well as a hundred emails and documents and other things,” said Manigault Newman in an interview with the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery” released Friday, claiming she can testify about her knowledge of Russian ties to Trump’s campaign.
Manigault Newman said that congressional committees have not yet reached out to her seeking testimony regarding information relevant to lawmaker probes into election interference and potential collusion with the Trump campaign.
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Earlier this month she said that she met with special counsel Robert Mueller and would be willing to speak with him again.
Calls for Trump’s removal have renewed this week after his former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to charges including a campaign finance violation, implicating the president in the process.
Manigault Newman told the Yahoo News podcast that she still talks to Cohen frequently.
“Michael Cohen and I are still close,” she said on Wednesday, when Cohen appeared in court. “I talked to him today and I wanted him to know and reassure him that his friends are still his friends. We still have his back.”
Trump has been lashing out at Cohen in the days since his former lawyer accepted a plea bargain for eight counts related to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance law violations.
“If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” Trump tweeted on Wednesday.
Manigault Newman said on the podcast that she was “very upset” about Trump’s tweet.
“Why kick a man while he’s down, you know? This man is facing jail time, he has a family, he has a beautiful wife. His daughter was my intern at the White House,” Manigault Newman said. She previously served as the director of communications for the White House’s Office of Public Liaison.
“He would not be paying off porn stars if Donald Trump had not slept with them and had these illicit relationships with them and if Donald Trump had not directed him to pay these women off,” she continued, referring to the payments Cohen made to women alleging affairs with Trump.
Cohen did not refer to Trump by name during his court proceedings but told a judge that he made two six-figure payments relating to women — adult-film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal — at the direction of “a candidate for federal office.”
Manigault Newman has been on a media blitz surrounding her new tell-all memoir, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” which hit No. 1 on The New York Times best seller list this week.