What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to make public servants sign the same nondisclosure agreements his ex-wives had to.

The Trump administration released a draft proposal today that would force federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, in an apparent attempt to stop embarrassing and politically damaging leaks. 

Of course, there are already legal means to bar the release of classified information, but most of what happens in government offices isn't classified. Stories about Trump being manipulated by junior staffers, or paying inappropriate sexual attention to them, or throwing temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way aren't matters of national security—but they are things that government employees witness, and tell Congress or the press about. They're also firsthand witnesses to incompetence, immorality, and corruption on the part of Trump's senior officials.

It's this kind of sunlight that Trump's rule would try to shut out, by giving him new ways to punish and financially ruin government employees who witnessed wrongdoing. He's tried it before in both public and private life. For example, in 2019, he threatened to sue a former White House employee who had written a tell-all book for violation of an NDA. Trump ultimately backed down, in part because without any legal authority behind it, the agreement was almost certainly unenforceable. 

Trump's also made extensive use of NDAs in his private life. He's forced each of his ex-wives to sign one as part of their divorce settlements, and they're a routine part of working for his businesses. But even then, they don't always have the desired effect. Trump tried unsuccessfully to use NDAs to keep the adult film actress Stormy Daniels from revealing their sexual encounter, which took place shortly after the birth of Trump's youngest son. That arrangement, signed under a pseudonym ("David Dennison"), became a key element in Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts in New York.

Whistleblower protections are baked right into federal law, and for good reason. Government officials engaging in corrupt or illegal behavior usually try to keep it secret. Bringing public scrutiny to bear on the details is sometimes the only way of rooting out that kind of corruption. Likewise, journalists who publish internal government information that sources bring them usually can't be forced to reveal those sources, or be prosecuted themselves, although it hasn't stopped Trump from trying to do just that in the past.

It was exactly this kind of protected whistleblower action that led to Trump's first impeachment. Alexander Vindman, an Army lieutenant colonel working for the National Security Council, was the first to raise alarms about the phone call in which Trump tried to strongarm Ukraine's president into ginning up a fake investigation against Joe Biden's son. Trump had correctly believed that Biden would be the Democratic nominee in 2020, and that he would need to manufacture some disqualifying scandal in order to beat Biden in the general election. But the resulting blowback, which saw many Republicans openly disgusted by Trump's abuse of an allied power in pursuit of domestic political dirty tricks, helped cost Trump the election instead.

Why does this matter?

• The purpose of government isn't to help Donald Trump cover up his scandals.  

• One way to stop people from sharing evidence of corruption and incompetence is to run a less corrupt and incompetent administration.