Here’s What Hope Hicks Could Testify In Trump Hush Money Trial

 

Former White House communications director Hope Hicks leaves the hearing room during a break at a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee June 19, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Former White House aide Hope Hicks is expected to be one of the next witnesses called to testify in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial—after the prosecution’s first witness, National Enquirer former publisher David Pecker, portrayed her as a liaison between him and Trump as Pecker sought to quash affair allegations on Trump’s behalf.

Hicks, once a close confidant to Trump who served as his press secretary during his 2016 campaign followed by two stints as his communications director during his presidency, previously testified before the Manhattan grand jury that voted to bring criminal charges against Trump last year, according to multiple reports.

Hicks’ name was raised in several instances throughout the past week during Pecker’s testimony, when he told jurors that he helped coordinate hush money payments to three individuals threatening to come forward with allegations of extramarital affairs against Trump.

Pecker said Trump arranged for him to speak over the phone with Hicks and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2018, shortly after Playboy model Karen McDougal detailed her alleged affair with Trump to CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Pecker had previously arranged a “catch and kill” agreement with McDougal to buy her rights to the story, and testified that he told Hicks and Sanders he was considering amending McDougal’s agreement to prevent her from continuing to speak about the affair, adding the two “thought that it was a good idea.”

Federal prosecutors, in their case against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for his involvement in the hush money payments, alleged that Hicks was on a phone call with Trump and Cohen the day Trump was informed that adult film star Stormy Daniels was seeking to sell her story of an affair with Trump, along with a second phone call on the day after Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence, according to the New York Times.

Hicks, in her 2019 testimony before Congress in its probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, denied any knowledge of the Daniels deal at the time it was arranged and told lawmakers she was not involved in any discussions between Cohen and Trump about the payment.

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW

Whether Trump will take the stand in the case. He told reporters earlier this month he planned to.

KEY BACKGROUND

Hicks was one of Trump’s most trusted advisers during her time in the White House and ran damage control for some of Trump’s biggest controversies, including former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Hicks—who worked previously for Ivanka Trump’s fashion company before Trump tapped her for his presidential campaign—resigned shortly after her testimony before Congress in 2018 and returned to the White House for a brief period in 2020. Trump spoke highly of Hicks when she left the White House in 2018, lauding her for her “great work,” and describing her as “as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person.”

NEWS PEG

Prosecutors charged Trump last year with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, alleging he illegally labeled reimbursements to Cohen for the hush money payments he made to Daniels as legal expenses on business records. In addition to the payment to Daniels, National Enquirer parent company American Media, Inc., made two separate payments on Trump’s behalf to McDougal and a doorman who claimed to have knowledge of a child Trump fathered out of wedlock (allegations the National Enquirer deemed were untrue), according to prosecutors and Pecker, who said Trump never reimbursed the company for those two deals. Trump’s charges do not involve the payments to McDougal and the doorman, but prosecutors have used them to illustrate to the jury their claims that Trump executed the hush money schemes to sway the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has claimed, without evidence, they were brought on President Joe Biden’s behalf to hurt his chances of winning the election.

TANGENT

Pecker, in what was widely viewed as damning and revelatory testimony, alleged that Trump was directly involved in the hush money payments, detailing multiple conversations he had with the former president about the deals and their status. During a meeting at Trump Tower, shortly after Trump was elected, Trump made a joke that Pecker “probably know more than anyone in this room’’ while introducing him to several newly appointed White House officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, Pecker testified. Pecker said Trump then thanked him for making the deals with McDougal and the doorman. Pecker also corroborated prosecutors’ claims that he made an informal agreement with Trump to serve as goalkeeper for potentially negative stories about him and publish others that reflected poorly on his rivals, detailing how he worked closely with Cohen to steer and “embellish” coverage in Trump’s favor.