Omarosa Manigault Newman is the black Benedict Arnold of our time!

She has not only betrayed the president of the United States, possibly endangering national security, she has also betrayed blacks by being an embarrassment and a symbol of deception at the highest levels of government.

She will go down in history as the black woman who betrayed a president, recording conversations with him and the White House chief of staff in the White House Situation Room. Both are unprecedented acts of betrayal, deception, and disloyalty.

The name Benedict Arnold is synonymous in American history with being a traitor and exhibiting despicable behavior against those to whom one was once loyal.

Arnold was a military general during the Revolutionary War fighting for the American Continental Army before betraying them and defecting to our then British enemy.

Like Arnold, Manigault Newman betrayed the person and those to whom she had professed loyalty and defected to their enemies — those who hate the president including much of the main stream media and the Democratic “Resistance.”

She had no claim to fame other than appearing on episodes of Trump’s “Apprentice,” on NBC television.

No tears are being shed and no love is being lost in black conservative and GOP circles over Manigault Newman’s being fired. Many felt she should never have been hired in the first place.

George Farrell, chairman of BlakPAC, which raises funds for black conservative candidates at the state, local, and federal levels, said of her:

“She should never have been hired; had no verifiable experience in political or governmental affairs; and, had no history of working with black or minority issues.”

National Newspaper Publishers’ Association (NNPA) columnist Raynard Jackson asked the key question in an article for Black Press USA in February of 2017, “Why is President Trump’s Only Senior Black Staffer A Democrat?”

He went on to say, “President Trump seems to be satisfied with surrounding himself with Black Democrats like Omarosa Manigault, who have absolutely no standing in the Black community, nor any institutional knowledge of Black Republicans or the Republican Party.”

In a recent article in The Washington Post, by Jesse J. Holland, “Black Americans Aren’t Buying Omarosa’s Turn Against Trump,” Jackson is quoted as saying that “There is absolutely no way she can redeem herself. Who is going to trust her ever again?”

Conservative black radio host and fellow Newsmax Insider Armstrong Williams has said ” . . . Omarosa can’t be trusted . . .

In that same Washington Post article, written by Holland, author Earl Ofari Hutchinson said Omarosa’s “tell-all mea culpa won’t win her any brownie points with most blacks . . . Their loathing of Omarosa is virtually frozen in stone. She’s still roundly lambasted as a two-bit opportunist, a racial sellout and an ego driven hustler.”

The only person responsible for Manigault Newman’s hiring and who must take the blame for the consequences is the president.

He did have options in choosing blacks for a top White House position. One of the best is Kay Coles James, the current president of the Heritage Foundation.org and former Director of the U.S. Office of Personal Management (OPM) under President George W. Bush.

What a great assistant to the president she would have been, and her appointment would have been universally praised. James told Politico’s “Women Rule” podcast in March of this year, that Omarosa “blocked” her from serving in the Trump administration.

There were many others I could mention such as former state representative and Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll, a Navy veteran and one of the first prominent blacks to support him. A Trinidad native and well versed in international affairs, she would have also been good at the Veterans Administration, a key State Department post, or a great ambassador to any country.

Manigault Newman gained the reputation among black Republicans of being the “black gate keeper,” making sure no one could pose a threat to her.

To coin an old phrase, she considered herself the “HNIC” (“Head ‘Negro’ in Charge”).

Black and white Democrats treated her as they usually treat high ranking black Republicans or Trump supporters — with ridicule and disrespect.

On Aug. 16, 2018, I wrote in this space an article which pointed out “the disgraceful and disrespectable treatment” Manigault Newman received at the convention of National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in New Orleans.

She was almost run off of the stage.

As we now see, those same black journalists, and their liberal white colleagues in the hate Trump media — who ignored her in the past — are treating her like a hero.

But the real betrayal by this black Benedict Arnold is to black people and their hopes and aspirations to gain entry and participation into the highest levels of American politics — for either party — but especially for already diversity -challenged Republicans. There will always be the whispered “Omarosa excuse” for not hiring or promoting.

Omarosa will soon learn that no one likes a traitor!

At least Benedict Arnold would be proud of her.

Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations consulting firm in Florida.