Hope Hicks, who was one of former President Donald Trump’s closest aides for years, has been called to the stand to testify at Trump’s criminal trial in New York.
Hicks was Trump’s top press aide during his 2016 presidential campaign and later served as White House communications director. Prosecutors are expected to question her about her knowledge of some of the key events at issue in the trial, including an alleged scheme to buy the rights to salacious stories that could have damaged Trump’s election prospects.
Earlier in the trial, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified that Hicks had been “in and out” of a 2015 Trump Tower meeting where Pecker, Trump and Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney at the time, allegedly hatched the scheme to bury stories about Trump, a tactic now known as “catch and kill.”
Hicks was also the recipient of an email in evidence from a National Enquirer editor flagging a 2008 article about Trump. And on Thursday, prosecutors entered as evidence a series of texts between her and Cohen on Nov. 4, 2016, and Nov. 5, 2016, in which they discussed a Wall Street Journal story about the payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who received $150,000 from the Enquirer’s parent company in exchange for the rights to her account.
Hicks also had a front-row seat to one of the most pivotal moments of the 2016 campaign: the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, a 2005 recording in which Trump is heard saying he could “grab [women] by the p****” and “make them do anything.”
The Washington Post first published the tape on Oct. 7, 2016, just weeks before Election Day. One day later, Hollywood attorney Keith Davidson told the Enquirer’s editor that his client, adult film star Stormy Daniels, was willing to come forward with an allegation that she had sex with Trump in 2006. Cohen ultimately paid $130,000 in exchange for Daniels’ silence. Prosecutors allege the political fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape was a major driving factor in the decision to pay Daniels.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to reimbursements to Cohen. He has pleaded not guilty and denies having sex with McDougal or Daniels.