Hope Hicks, a former director of communications in the Donald Trump administration, testified to the secretive steps his inner circle took to keep secret hush money payments which even she, repetitively, the former president’s closest advisor, did not know about.
Trump friend for ages, Hope Hicks, took the witness stand today and gave testimony that was extremely damaging to President Trump. She explained how the campaign kept secret from the public, the political chaos that exploded after the release of the tape, referred to colloquially as ‘Access Hollywood’. She did not mince words when she also told the story of how Trump was determined to keep payment of hush money against women before the election
Hicks in fact, The former White House communications director and the chief of staff, who was the considered a key adviser for Trump, was not sure as to whether testifying or not. She opened by saying that she was “very nervous” and she turned into an emotional state as the lawyer of the defendant started his interrogation, paused the proceeding for a few moments.
And the words that followed (the “Access Hollywood” tape where Trump confessed that he was using his popularity to grab women around in the genital area) awoke in her the instinct of struggle and this would be a great benefit for the prosecution.
Boasting of my ability to see premonitions, led me to think that this was not the ideal story and that it was going to swallow the news for the following three days, jeopardizing the integrity of the Fox network.
The Week in Cartoons April 29 – May 3
The tape, which became public one month before the election – on Oct. 8, 2016 – “was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome,” she said.
Then, just four days before the election, she fielded a question from a Wall Street Journal reporter looking for a comment on an even bigger story – a story about American Media Inc., the parent company of The National Enquirer, buying the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that she had an affair with Trump years earlier. And later, the reporter also wanted to know about Stormy Daniels, the former porn star who claimed to have sexual encounters with Trump.
In each instance, Hicks was given an excuse: In the case of McDougal, David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, told her that the $150,000 payment was a business contract for magazine covers and fitness columns. And Trump told her that the $130,000 payment to Daniels from Cohen was “made out of the kindness of his heart.”
“Mr. Trump was saying he had spoken to Michael and that Michael had paid this woman to protect him from a false allegation – and that Michael felt like it was his job to protect him and that that’s what he was doing. And he did it out of the kindness of his own heart and he never told anybody about it.”
When asked to describe whether that story seemed to bolster what Hicks knew about Cohen’s character, Hicks said that it was “out of character for Michael.”
“I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” she said.
Trump’s defense scored one good point on Friday, when Hicks repeated multiple times that, more than anything else, Trump remained most concerned about how the stories about McDougal and Daniels would affect his wife, Melania Trump. The detail plays into plans by the defense to present Trump as a family man concerned with the well-being of his wife – not a politician looking to cover up a scandal ahead of an election.
