Hope Hicks Leaving the White House

Nervous and at one point tearful, Hicks began testifying Friday in Trump’s hush money trial. She worked for the Trump Organization in 2014, and became his communications director during his presidential campaign.

Hope Hicks detailed the behind-the-scenes responses to damaging news stories. She also described her interactions with Cohen, who she says tried to insert himself into the campaign.

Leaving the White House

Hicks, who was Trump’s campaign and White House communications director, has been one of the prosecution’s key witnesses in his Manhattan hush money trial. Prosecutors want her to shed light on the turmoil in Trump’s campaign in the weeks before the election as he weighed how to respond to salacious allegations of an extramarital affair. Hicks, who testified Thursday and Friday, has been asked about her interactions with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the media mogul David Pecker, who owned the National Enquirer.

Hope Hicks described how Pecker often consulted her before publishing negative stories about Trump. She said she was familiar with the Enquirer’s reputation for “false and defamatory allegations,” and that Pecker often shared her concerns about the impact of negative coverage on Trump.

While prosecutors have tried to use Hicks’ close relationship with Trump to cast doubt on her credibility, she has remained poised and focused. She has also defended her role in guiding the president’s response to damaging stories, including those about his alleged affairs with women.

During her testimony, prosecutors pressed her on a 2016 call that Cohen secretly recorded with Trump to discuss a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair. They played a portion of the recording to show jurors that the conversation was about how the story would affect Trump’s candidacy.

Hope Hicks defended the decision to pay Daniels, saying that Trump believed the story could hurt his campaign and was trying to protect his wife Melania from false allegations of an affair. She also denied that she had any role in encouraging Cohen to lie to Congress about the payments.

Hicks was questioned about a 2015 meeting between Trump and Pecker, where they discussed suppressing negative stories about the president in order to boost his campaign. She recalled phone calls between the pair, including one in which Trump praised a story about political opponent Dr Ben Carson’s accusations of medical malpractice.

Hope Hicks told prosecutors that she reached out to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Cohen after The Wall Street Journal contacted her for comment about its planned report on the hush-money agreement with McDougal. She said she believed the story was Pulitzer-worthy. Hicks also recalled reaching out to Cohen and Pecker when the Journal contacted her again after it published the article.

Hope Testified in His Hush-Money Trial

Hope Hicks, who had never worked in politics before Donald Trump plucked her from a position at his daughter Ivanka’s fashion line to be his campaign spokeswoman, was asked Friday about Trump’s relationships with women and how the campaign reacted when reports of extramarital affairs surfaced. She testified that she saw the president as a man who cared about his family, including his wife Melania, and did not want them embarrassed by stories about his sexual misconduct.

On cross-examination, Trump attorney Emil Bove questioned Hicks about her time at the Trump Organization and her first job in the White House. As he began questioning her about the portfolio she handled in that role, she began to cry. She asked for a break, and Judge Juan Merchant granted her request. Hicks exited the courtroom and returned after a few moments.

When Hope Hicks was questioned about the infamous Access Hollywood tape from early October 2016, which included an audio recording of Trump bragging that when he’s famous, he can “grab [women] by the pussy,” she recalled having a “frustrated” reaction. She said she was worried the media would focus solely on the tape and that it could affect female voters.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo also showed jurors text messages between Hicks and Cohen that were displayed in court. One showed Hicks asking Cohen to give her a phone number for David Pecker, the president of American Media Inc., whose parent company bought the rights to Stormy Daniels’ and Karen McDougal’s stories. The messages were sent the day after the Wall Street Journal published a story about AMI’s purchase of the two women’s stories and its failure to publish them.

Prosecutors argued that the messages demonstrated how Pecker colluded with Michael Cohen and others in the Trump circle to bury negative stories about the president before the election. They were part of a broader strategy to influence voters, they said. Hicks said she did not believe the conversations about burying negative news influenced the election, but acknowledged that they were an issue for her and other aides. She said she thought it was “out of character” for Cohen to pay for Daniels’ silence.

Hope Hicks Left The White House

The departure of Hope Hicks from the White House comes as a surprise to many. She was one of the most trusted and longest-serving advisers for President Trump. Hicks was known for her resolute loyalty to the president and her ability to handle high-profile events with poise. She is expected to leave the administration in the next few weeks, according to a person familiar with her decision.

The announcement of her resignation came the day after she testified for hours before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. She admitted that she sometimes told “white lies” for the president, but she said she never lied about matters that were relevant to the Russia investigation.

Her testimony gave jurors a glimpse into the damage-control efforts that occurred during the final days of the campaign. Among them was Hicks’ directive to Trump to deny that he had a sexual relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels. Hicks also recalled being asked by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to chase down a rumor that the campaign was aware of another potentially damaging tape.

Hope Hicks, 29, grew up near the Trump Organization, and started working for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in 2014. She then moved to the presidential campaign as press secretary early on. She became one of the few aides to follow Trump from his political beginnings to the White House, and she developed a close relationship with him and members of his family.

Even as her job grew increasingly demanding and her personal life became tabloid fodder, Hicks retained a loyalty to the president. She was praised by some for her ability to stop the president from attacking his family and colleagues, and she would shield others from the president’s anger.

Other people close to the president say she was often overworked and burned out. She was reportedly tired of traveling and constantly being scrutinized by reporters. She was also worried about her future after the presidency and wanted to be closer to her children.

She is Married

Hope Hicks has worked in fashion and public relations since she was a teenager. She modeled for Ralph Lauren before graduating from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor’s degree in English. After graduation, she worked for a PR firm that counted the Trump Organization as one of its clients. She eventually made her way to the White House, where she served as Trump’s communications director.

She was a key prosecution witness at the trial, testifying about how Trump campaign staffers panicked after a recording emerged of the candidate bragging about groping women. She also testified about how she regularly communicated with Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen.

However, she said that she did not know about the alleged scheme to pay two women to keep them from talking about the affair with Trump. In fact, she said that she only learned about it when reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about the story.

Throughout her testimony, Hicks appeared to be fighting back tears. She kept her hands in her pockets and lowered her head, occasionally sniffling. She also moved her hair to the side of her neck and lowered her voice. Her behavior was unlike that of other witnesses who were questioned about the hush money allegations.

While Hicks was a close adviser to the president, she has not been married. She is dating a businessman named Jim Donovan. The couple is reportedly planning to marry in the summer of 2024.

As the former communications director of the Trump administration, Hicks was a trusted confidant to the president. He often asked her to weigh in on controversial issues and to preview his tweets. She was able to provide him with a unique perspective on the issues because of her long relationship with him.

Hicks is a trusted source for the president and often takes his calls. She has been a strong supporter of his agenda and is loyal to him. However, she has a history of lying in order to protect the president.

Hicks was a frequent target of the special counsel’s investigation, which resulted in her firing from the Trump Organization in 2021. She later accepted a job at Fox Corporation as its chief communications officer.