Hope Hicks, a former adviser to Donald Trump, took the stand Friday at the former president’s hush money trial and recounted how his 2016 campaign became embroiled in a political firestorm over a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women without their permission. Hicks, who served as White House communications director, is the first close Trump adviser to testify in the case, which accuses the Republican former president of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by silencing women who claimed to have sexual encounters with him. Prosecutors contend that the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which emerged just days before a debate, jolted Trump’s campaign and hastened his then-lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush money deal with porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
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Quick Read
- Testimony Details: Hope Hicks, former adviser to Donald Trump, testified at his hush money trial, discussing the impact of the “Access Hollywood” tape on the 2016 presidential campaign.
- Role in White House: Hicks served as White House communications director and was closely involved in Trump’s 2016 campaign.
- Allegations and Legal Implications: The trial accuses Trump of orchestrating a scheme to influence the 2016 election by silencing women with whom he allegedly had extramarital sexual encounters.
- Access Hollywood Tape: Hicks recounted the campaign’s scramble after learning about the tape, which recorded Trump boasting about inappropriate behavior towards women.
- Reactions and Strategy: She described her concerns about the tape’s potential to dominate news cycles and impact the election, noting it as a “damaging development.”
- Personal Testimony: Hicks, subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution, expressed nervousness about her court appearance, indicating the significant pressure and attention surrounding her testimony.
- Connection to Trump: She mentioned her last communication with Trump occurred in late 2022, highlighting her ongoing relevance to his circle despite no longer working directly with him.
The Associated Press has the story:
Hope Hicks, ex-Trump adviser, recounts political firestorm in 2016 over ‘Access Hollywood’ tape
Newslooks- NEW YORK (AP) —
Hope Hicks, a former adviser to Donald Trump, took the stand Friday at the former president’s hush money trial and recounted how his 2016 campaign became embroiled in a political firestorm over a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women without their permission.
Hicks, who served as White House communications director, is the first close Trump adviser to testify in the case, which accuses the Republican former president of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by silencing women who claimed to have sexual encounters with him.
Prosecutors contend that the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which emerged just days before a debate, jolted Trump’s campaign and hastened his then-lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush money deal with porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
Hicks described being deeply concerned after learning about the tape’s existence from a Washington Post reporter seeking comment about it. She huddled with other Trump advisers and read some of the transcript of the tape to Trump, she testified.
“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development.”
Trump has denied the allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee for this year denies any wrongdoing in the case.
Hicks, who is is testifying for the prosecution under a subpoena, acknowledged she was “really nervous” after stepping up to the microphone. Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump,” she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022.
Her testimony on the trial’s 11th day was the latest in a frenzied second week of witness testimony and followed that of forensic analyst Douglas Daus and paralegal Georgia Longstreet.
Lawyer Keith Davidson concluded his testimony Thursday after spending nearly 6 1/2 hours on the stand over two days. He laid out for jurors details of his negotiations with Michael Cohen and the National Enquirer on behalf of Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, not shying away from an election night realization that his efforts might have contributed to Trump’s 2016 win.
Daus also took the stand that day, testifying about what he found on Cohen’s cellphone. Among other things, Daus said Cohen had nearly 40,000 contacts saved to the device.
Prosecutors have said that Trump and others conducted a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by purchasing and burying salacious stories that might hurt his campaign.
Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records to cover up hush money payments — including $130,000 given to Daniels, a porn actor, by Cohen — recording them instead as legal expenses.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The case is the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.
TRIAL BREAKS FOR LUNCH
Donald Trump’s hush money trial recessed for lunch just after 1 p.m. Friday.
The former president ignored shouted questions from reporters as he left the courtroom but flashed a thumbs-up.
Court will resume with Hope Hicks returning to the stand at 2:15 p.m.
HICKS TURNED TO KUSHNER TO TRY TO DELAY PUBLICATION OF MCDOUGAL’S STORY
Hope Hicks testified Friday that she asked Jared Kushner to try to delay publication of a story involving Donald Trump and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Hicks said that four days before the November 2016 election, she received a request for comment from a Wall Street Journal reporter for a forthcoming story about American Media Inc. buying the rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Immediately, Hicks testified, she reached out to Kushner — in hopes he could use his connections toPlayboy model Karen McDougal.the owner of the Journal’s parent company, News Corp., to help delay the story.
“He had a very good relationship with Rupert Murdoch and I was hoping to see if we could buy a little extra time to deal with this,” she said of Kushner.
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told her that he likely wouldn’t be able to reach Murdoch in time, Hicks testified.
HICKS FIRST HEARD STORMY DANIELS’ NAME IN 2015, EX-ADVISER SAYS
Hope Hicks testified Friday that she first heard Stormy Daniels’ name uttered on Donald Trump’s plane about a year before Michael Cohen struck a deal with the porn actor to silence her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
In November 2015, Hicks said, she heard Trump and some of his security detail “telling a story about a celebrity golf tournament and some of the participants in the tournament and her name came up.”
The way the story went, Daniels “was there with one of the other participants that Mr. Trump played with that day,” Hicks testified.
In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
HICKS ASKED COHEN TO HELP DIG INTO RUMOR OF ANOTHER TAPE
In the aftermath of the “Access Hollywood” tape’s release, Hicks testified Friday that she asked Michael Cohen, then a lawyer for Donald Trump, to chase down a rumor about another potentially damaging tape.
Hicks said she wanted to be proactive in seeking out the supposed tape because “I did not want anyone to be blindsided.”
She asked Cohen to call a friend of his in the media — whom she did not identify — and ask about the existence of the tape and, if there was a tape, when the campaign could expect it to be published.
“There was no such tape regardless, but he sort of chased that down for me,” Hicks said.‘
ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’ TAPE KNOCKED AN ACTUAL STORM FROM THE HEADLINES, HICKS SAYS
Former Trump adviser Hope Hicks testified on Friday that the political firestorm that ensued after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape was so strong, it knocked an actual storm out of the headlines.
“It was intense. It dominated coverage, I would say, for the 36 hours leading up to the debate,” she said, referring to an important debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton that Donald Trump had been preparing for when the news broke.
Hicks said that at the time she received an email from a Washington Post reporter around 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2016, informing her of the looming publication of a story revealing the tape, the news was dominated by a Category 4 hurricane that was charging toward the east coast.
“I don’t think anybody remembers” where that hurricane hit, Hicks said.
Hurricane Matthew, which had hit Haiti and Cuba as a Category 4 storm earlier in the week, made landfall in the U.S. in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 8, the day after the tape was made public.
Hicks also testified that Trump’s initial opinion on the tape’s leak was that he felt “this wasn’t good, but it was also like two guys talking privately, locker room talk.”
“It wasn’t anything to get so upset over,” she said of Trump’s feelings. “Certainly he didn’t want to upset anybody. He felt like this was pretty standard stuff for two guys chatting with each other.”
HOW REPUBLICANS REACTED TO THE ‘ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’ TAPE
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush money case read through a series of statements on Friday put out by prominent Republicans — including U.S. Sens. John McCain and Mitt Romney — in response to the “Access Hollywood” tape, asking Hicks whether she recalled the various condemnations.
She appeared increasingly irritated by the line of questioning as it went on.
Asked about remarks from then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan calling the tape “sickening,” Hicks replied tersely: “I don’t remember that but it sounds like something he would say.”
HICKS DESCRIBES HER RESPONSE TO ‘ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’ TAPE
Jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money case saw on Friday a transcript in court of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, as prosecutors asked Hicks to describe her reaction to learning about the tape’s existence from a reporter seeking comment.
“I was concerned, very concerned,” Hicks said, speaking slowly. “Yeah. I was concerned about the contents of the email. I was concerned about the lack of time to respond. I was concerned that we had a transcript but not the tape. There was a lot at play.”
Hicks said she forwarded the request to other campaign leadership, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny.”
The transcript of the conversation, which was attached in an email from a Washington Post reporter, was not read aloud in court but was shown on monitors visible to jurors. Hicks was asked to read portions of the transcript to herself before responding.
Trump sat stone-faced as the transcript appeared on screen, whispering at points to his lawyers.
Prosecutors contend that the tape, which emerged just days before a debate, jolted Trump’s campaign and hastened his then-lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush money deal with porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
HICKS RECALLS TRUMP’S INTERACTIONS WITH TABLOID PUBLISHER
Hope Hicks testified Friday that she doesn’t remember if she was involved in the August 2015 meeting where David Pecker, then publisher of the National Enquirer, said he told Donald Trump and Michael Cohen he’d be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“I don’t have a recollection of that, but it’s certainly possible,” Hicks said.
Pecker testified last week that Hicks was present for some of the meeting, and Hicks said Friday that she’d frequently pop in and out of Trump’s office while he was meeting with other people.
Hicks recalled some of Trump’s other interactions with Pecker, including phone calls in which the then-candidate praised the publisher for articles critical of his political rivals.
She testified that she had a “vivid recollection” of hearing Trump on the phone with Pecker congratulating him on a National Enquirer article about medical malpractice allegations against Dr. Ben Carson. Another time, Trump called Pecker to compliment a negative article about U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Mr. Trump was just congratulating him on the great reporting,” Hicks testified. Sometimes he would say things like “This is Pulitzer worthy,” Hicks added.
JURY GIVEN TRUMP RESPONSES TO ‘ACCESS HOLLYWOOD’ TAPE
Before Hope Hicks took the stand on Friday, the court saw and heard some of Donald Trump’s responses to the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in October 2016.
They included a video he posted to Twitter, now known as the social platform X, in which he apologized and called the video a “distraction from important issues we face today,” and a tweet in which he called his comments in the 2005 video “locker room remarks.”
Jurors also heard about a March 2023 Truth Social post in which Trump said he “did nothing wrong” and included a derogatory nickname for Stormy Daniels. In the post, he referred to Michael Cohen, his ex-lawyer, as a “convicted liar and felon jailbird” and stated: “Never had an affair with her. Just another false acquisition by a sleazebag.”
In another social media post, he maintained “Nothing ever happened with these women” and “No one has more respect for women than me.”
HICKS DETAILS FOLLOWING TRUMP FROM REAL ESTATE TO POLITICS
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo used the start of Hope Hicks’ testimony Friday to give jurors a window into Donald Trump’s real estate company, the Trump Organization, including its personnel and even the physical layout of its offices.
Colangelo also quizzed her on other Trump Organization figures, including Trump’s longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller, his former executive assistant Rhona Graff, ex-chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and ex-lawyer turned key trial figure Michael Cohen. He also asked her to describe what she meant by the “26th floor,” the section of Trump Tower where Trump and other executives had their offices.
Hicks also described the sudden transition from working for the Trump Organization to working for Trump’s presidential campaign.
“Mr. Trump one day said we’re going to Iowa and I didn’t really know why,” Hicks recalled.
When Trump later said she would be his press secretary, Hicks said her first thought was that he “might be joking.”
“I had no experience and worked at the company, not the campaign, so I didn’t take it very seriously,” she said. “Eventually I started spending so much time on the campaign that I became a member of the campaign and I was the press secretary.”
HICKS CALLS TRUMP ‘A VERY HARD WORKER’
After taking the stand in Donald Trump’s hush money trial Friday morning, Hope Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms, complimenting him multiple times in the first few minutes of her testimony.
She described him as a “very good multi-tasker, a very hard worker.”
Asked by prosecutor Matthew Colangelo who she reported to while working as communications director for the Trump Organization, Hicks said, “Everybody that works there in some sense reports to Mr. Trump. It’s a big successful company but it’s really run like a small family business in some ways.”
Hicks, who currently has her own communications consulting firm, is testifying under a subpoena and, unlike other former Trump employees, is paying her lawyers herself.
FORMER TRUMP ADVISER HOPE HICKS TAKES THE STAND
Hope Hicks, who served as Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and went on to hold various roles in his White House, took the witness stand in his New York hush money case on Friday.
Her testimony on the trial’s 11th day was the latest in a frenzied second week of witness testimony and followed that of forensic analyst Douglas Daus and paralegal Georgia Longstreet.TRUMP PAYS GAG ORDER FINE
Donald Trump has paid his $9,000 fine for violating the gag order in his hush money criminal trial.
The former president paid the penalty Thursday, ahead of a Friday deadline. Trump’s legal team supplied the court clerk’s office with two cashier’s checks — one for $2,000 and one for $7,000.
Judge Juan M. Merchan ordered Trump to pay the fine after holding him in contempt of court and finding that posts he made online about his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, porn actor Stormy Daniels and the composition of the jury had violated the gag order.
Merchan is currently weighing a prosecution request to hold Trump in contempt again and fine him $1,000 for each of four more alleged violations from last week. Merchan has warned Trump that he could be jailed if he keeps breaching the gag order.
PARALEGAL SAYS SHE USED NATIONAL ARCHIVES TO VERY TRUMP’S SOCIAL ACCOUNTS
A government agency at the heart of Donald Trump’s separate classified documents criminal case got a name drop at his New York hush money trial on Friday.
Georiga Longstreet testified that she used the National Archives and Records Administration’s archive of the official presidential account on Twitter, now known as the social platform X, to help verify the authenticity of Trump’s account.
Longstreet noted that Trump’s official government account, @POTUS45, frequently reposted posts from Trump’s @realdonaldtrump account.
There was no visible reaction from Trump to the mention of the National Archives, whose pursuit of records he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after his 2020 election loss led to charges alleging that he illegally hoarded classified documents.
PARALEGAL FROM MANHATTAN DA’S OFFICE CALLED TO THE STAND
Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, was called as the next witness in Donald Trump’s hush money case on Friday.
She has been assigned to the Trump case for the past year and a half and her role has been to review publicly available records relevant to the case, including Trump’s social media accounts on the social platform X — formerly known as Twitter — Facebook, LinkedIn and Truth Social.
DEFENSE RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT KEY RECORDING PLAYED IN COURT
Picking up where he left off on Thursday, Trump attorney Emil Bove plied Douglas Daus, the forensic analyst, with a set of deeply technical questions Friday meant to suggest that Michael Cohen may have doctored a 2016 recording played in court the previous day.
As evidence, Bove noted that the audio cuts off suddenly, as well as “gaps” in the handling of the phone that Daus agreed were “not ideal.”
Prosecutors say the abrupt ending of the recording was the result of Cohen receiving another call. Under questioning from Bove, Daus said there was no record of an incoming call in the phone’s metadata — but said it would be difficult to say for sure without looking at call log data from Cohen’s phone carrier.
“In many ways, we’re just going to have to take Michael Cohen’s word for it, aren’t we?” Bove said.
“Yes,” Daus replied.
With that, Bove concluded his cross-examination.
TRUMP’S ATTORNEY INVOKES ‘WEINSTEIN DECISION’ TO KEEP OUT EVIDENCE
Before testimony resumed in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, Judge Juan M. Merchan ruled to prevent prosecutors from showing the jury a photograph of Trump with Billy Bush and soap opera actor Arianne Zucker at the time of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche had asked for the image to be excluded from the trial, pointing to a recent court decision overturning Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction. In that case, the appeals court ordered a retrial because the judge had allowed testimony at trial unrelated to the allegations.
Merchan said the appeals court decision “doesn’t really factor into this” case, noting that the ruling had not laid out any new law, but nevertheless agreed to block prosecutors from introducing the photograph.
Prosecutors had said the image would help establish the timeline of the revelations about the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women without permission.
Merchan has previously ruled the 2005 tape cannot be played in court for jurors, but said prosecutors can still question witnesses about the recording.
