Senior White House communications official Omarosa Manigault, a controversial associate of President Trump going back to his days as host of The Apprentice, allegedly physically intimidated reporter April Ryan and said the White House has a “dossier” of potentially damaging information on her and other African American reporters, according to an account in The Washington Post.
Witnesses confirmed the altercation between Manigault and Ryan, the veteran White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. The confrontation took place outside White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s West Wing office late Wednesday.
“She stood right in my face like she was going to hit me,” Ryan told the Post. “I said, ‘You better back up.’ . . . She thought I would be bullied. I won’t be.”
Spicer did not respond to a request for comment. Manigault responded to an email from the Post with a single sentence: “My comment: Fake news!”
Manigault and Ryan were apparently good friends until October, when Manigault sent two emails to Ryan suggesting that Ryan had been paid by the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
