The Trump administration is moving to force every federal employee in the country to sign a nondisclosure agreement — a sweeping crackdown on leaks that critics say could silence government workers for good. But for Donald Trump, silencing people with NDAs is nothing new.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management posted a draft notice Tuesday that would bar federal workers from sharing a wide array of “non-public, confidential, or proprietary information” or “any sensitive, pre-decisional or deliberative material” not already available to the public. The rule goes well beyond typical classified and unclassified designations.
The notice will be published on Wednesday and remain open for a 30-day public comment period.
OPM cited several high-profile leaks to justify the move, including what it called “unauthorized disclosures” made to the New York Times and The Washington Post about a U.S. raid in January that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The administration claimed the leaks “put the lives of members of the armed forces at risk, leading news organizations to delay ‘publishing what they knew to avoid endangering U.S. troops.’”
The proposed rule would expand NDAs already in place at the Pentagon and other agencies across the entire federal government — potentially covering millions of workers.
It’s a tactic Trump has deployed for years. During his first term, he became the first president to require private sector-style NDAs from White House staff — senior aides and interns alike. Legal scholars at Cornell Law School called those agreements likely unconstitutional.
His most famous NDA battle came with former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who refused to sign a post-departure NDA tied to a $15,000-a-month campaign job offer — an agreement that would have barred her from disclosing details of her White House tenure. She wrote a tell-all book instead. An arbitrator later ruled the NDA “invalid” and its terms “vague and unenforceable.”
Legal experts have long warned that the government cannot impose NDAs on federal employees for unclassified information, no matter how sensitive or embarrassing. Critics warn that the sweeping language in the new proposal could be weaponized to suppress whistleblowers and shield government misconduct from public scrutiny.
The public has 30 days to comment on the proposed rule before it can be finalized.
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