Kevin Foley
Kevin Foley

When he brought her into the White House, President Trump must have known it would come to this. At some point, if she wasn't handled with kid gloves and allowed to do as she pleased, Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former contestant on Trump's old game show "The Apprentice," would find a way to stick it to the president. And has she ever.

Fired by White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly, the conniving Omarosa left with recorded conversations in hand and a book deal to flog. Now she's on a media tour promoting her "tell-all" on whatever media outlet will have her and, for now at least, interviewers are lined up out the door.

As reported in Politico, White House staff members are terrified, racking their brains trying to remember past conversations they had with Omarosa and wondering what recording she will drop next.

"The latest reveal indicates that Manigault Newman isn't just trying to discredit President Donald Trump, who is the subject of her book 'Unhinged,'" wrote Annie Karni, "In her crusade for publicity and payback, she's willing to embarrass and expose her former colleagues along the way."

Fed up with Omarosa's shenanigans, things like bringing her wedding party to the White House to shoot pictures, Kelly sent her packing last December. She was reportedly physically dragged from the grounds after she tried to confront the president in his residence.

"Gen. Kelly kicked her out (with) high drama with (Omarosa) offering vulgarities and curse words as she was escorted out of the building and off campus,” reported April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.

Manigault Newman now claims she has been interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and is characterizing herself as a "whistle blower." Trump blew his stack, of course, calling her "that dog" in a racially charged tweet that served only to prolong Omarosa's moment in the spotlight.

"First, everything that Omarosa is, Trump is, and nobody knows that better than Trump himself," writes columnist Jay Bookman in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Even now, I suspect, some part of Trump grudgingly respects the publicity coup that she's pulling off, even at his expense."

Maybe not. In a move clearly aimed at driving Omarosa off the front page, Sarah Huckabee Sanders took to her podium to announce that former CIA Director John Brennan was having his security clearance revoked along with other past officials who have been critical of Trump. Forget that Brennan is a private citizen whose First Amendment rights are guaranteed. The president's petulance means Brennan can no longer help those who replaced him on Trump's national security team.

The Trump campaign says it is taking legal action to enforce a non-disclosure agreement Omarosa signed, one that appears unenforceable insofar as she worked as a public official on the taxpayers' dime.

Meantime, as long as she's got those recordings, Omarosa holds the high (or low) ground in her PR battle with the president.

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Kevin Foley owns KEF Media Associates, Inc., an Atlanta-based producer and distributor of electronic publicity. He can be reached at [email protected].