(NEW YORK) – Hope Hicks, a former longtime adviser to Donald Trump, took the stand Friday at his criminal trial, where prosecutors are expected to question her about her knowledge of hush money payments made during Trump’s presidential campaign. 2016.
Hicks, who served as White House communications director, is the first close Trump adviser to testify in the case, which accuses the former Republican president of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by silencing women who alleged they had sexual encounters with him.
Hicks, who is testifying for the prosecution under subpoena, acknowledged she was “very nervous” after approaching the microphone. Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump,” she told the court that she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022.
Although no longer part of Trump’s inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms when the prosecutor began questioning her about her background. Hicks praised Trump several times in the first few minutes of his testimony, describing him as a “very good multitasker, a very hard worker.”
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Hicks served as press secretary for Trump’s 2016 campaign and was one of the few campaign staffers who joined his administration.
Prosecutors say Hicks spoke to Trump by phone during a frantic effort to keep allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape was leaked weeks before the 2016 election. He boasted about grabbing women without their permission.
Trump has denied allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. The presumptive Republican presidential candidate for the elections in November this year denies any irregularities in the case.
Former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, has yet to speak in the hush money trial. But jurors are already listening to Cohen’s words as prosecutors work to directly link Trump to payments to silence women with damaging allegations about him before the 2016 election.
The second week of testimony in the case will end on Friday, a day after jurors heard potentially crucial evidence: a recording of Trump and Cohen, then his lawyer, discussing a plan to pay off a former Playboy model who claimed to have have an affair with Trump. The former president denies the affair.
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Prosecutors spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build the foundation of their case accusing Trump of a scheme to illegally influence the election. They are setting the stage for crucial testimony from Cohen, who paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence before he was arrested in the hush money scheme.
Trump’s defense has worked to poke holes in the credibility of prosecutors’ witnesses and show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by keeping women quiet. The defense also suggested, when questioning a lawyer who represented two women in secret money negotiations, that Trump was, in fact, the victim of extortion.
The recording played on Thursday was secretly made by Cohen just before the 2016 election. Cohen is heard telling Trump about a plan to buy the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never be disclosed. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.
In the recording, Cohen revealed that he spoke with the Trump Organization’s then-chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, about “how to set everything up with financing.”
Trump can be heard responding: “How much do we have to pay for this? A fifth?”
Trump suggested the payment be made in cash, which prompted Cohen to object, repeatedly saying “no.” Trump then says “check” before the recording stops.
Prosecutors played the recording after calling to the stand Douglas Daus, a forensic analyst with the Manhattan district attorney’s office who performed analysis on iPhones that Cohen turned over to authorities during the investigation. Daus will return to the stand on Friday morning and it is unclear who will follow him.
Jurors also heard more than six hours of crucial testimony this week from Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented McDougal and Daniels in their dealings with Cohen and the National Enquirer — the tabloid that bought and buried negative stories in an industry practice known as “ catch and kill.” Davidson described Thursday being shocked that his covert efforts could have contributed to Trump winning the 2016 election.
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“What did we do?” Davidson sent a text message to the then-editor of the National Enquirer on election night, when it became clear that Trump would win. “Oh my God,” the tabloid editor responded.
“There was an understanding that our efforts may have in some way – get this – our activities may have in some way helped Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” Davidson told jurors.
Trump’s lawyers sought earlier in the day to mitigate the potential harm of Davidson’s testimony by having him acknowledge that he never had any interactions with Trump — only with Cohen. In fact, Davidson said, he had never been in the same room as Trump until his testimony.
“I have had no personal interactions with Donald Trump. It came from my clients, Mr. Cohen or some other source, but certainly not him,” Davidson said.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying the Trump Organization’s internal business records. The charges stem from invoices and checks that were considered legal expenses in Trump Organization records when prosecutors say they were actually reimbursements to Cohen for paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
