Trump Campaign Ex-Staffer Asks Judge to Keep NDA Suit Public

(Bloomberg) -- A former manager on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign who claims she was harassed on the job and is seeking to nullify a non-disclosure agreement is pressing to have her claims heard in public.

Jessica Denson asked a New York judge on Monday to deny the campaign’s request to force the non-disclosure case into arbitration. The Los Angeles-based actress briefly oversaw phone banks and Hispanic outreach for the Trump campaign. Denson, whose screen credits include the CBS crime drama "Person of Interest," is representing herself.

Lawyers for the campaign have asked to force Denson into closed-door arbitration, saying she’s required by her contract to resolve disputes privately. Denson says she never agreed to mediate such allegations.

Denson separately sued the campaign, claiming she was harassed on the job. She says the non-disclosure agreement makes it more difficult to proceed with that suit and potentially puts her on the hook to pay a $1.5 million penalty for violating the NDA.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider, Paul Cox

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