Hope Hicks reveals she was at the center of Trump’s 2016 damage control

NEW YORK – “This was a crisis.”

That was the consensus among Trump’s top campaign advisers on October 7, 2016, after leaving a Trump Tower conference room, where the then-presidential candidate’s debate preparation session was underway. There would be a meeting on a more urgent matter.

A Washington Post reporter notified the campaign that within two hours the paper planned to publish what became known as the “Access Hollywood” tape, a scandal that nearly ended Trump’s first run for president, a month before the election. election day.

Hope Hicks, who received the reporter’s email, took the stand at Trump’s trial in New York on Friday to detail his efforts to contain the ensuing chaos, along with revelations of hush money payments made to keep two women silent about alleged affairs. with the business tycoon.

A constant presence in Trump’s inner orbit, who served as his press secretary at the time, Hicks’ role in shaping media narratives put her at the center of it all — making her trial testimony critical to the U.S. District Attorney’s case. Manhattan.

Hicks was one of the first staffers to work on Trump’s 2016 campaign and quickly became one of his most trusted advisers. She served in the Trump White House in two separate terms, leaving in early 2018 and eventually joining the FOX corporate team before returning to the White House in early 2020 as a senior advisor.

Previously, she appeared before a Washington grand jury as special counsel Jack Smith investigated whether Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election. Trump has since been indicted in Washington, D.C., over his attempts to remain in power after the 2020 election. 2020.

Hicks has not been part of Trump’s political circle since the end of his first term and has no role in his 2024 campaign, although people familiar with the matter have said there is no tension between the two.

Hicks appeared nervous about being on the stand, at times running her hand through her hair and fiddling with her earrings. Moments after indicating that she doubted an explanation of the secret payment that Trump told her years ago, Hicks began to cry.

But before prosecutors questioned Hicks about the hush money, much of his testimony concerned the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which marked a turning point in Trump’s 2016 campaign and ignited rampant speculation that the mogul’s political ambitions business had come to an end.

On the tape, Trump is heard bragging about grabbing women inappropriately and apparently without their consent, off-the-cuff comments captured while on the set of a soap opera more than 10 years earlier.

“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even hope,” he says on the tape. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the p—-. You can do anything.”

“I was concerned,” Hicks testified Friday about when he learned about the tape. “I was very worried.”

Now, the former president is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with refunds his then-fixer received after paying porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to remain quiet about her alleged affair with Trump. Trump, who denies the affair, has pleaded not guilty.

Although the tape is not at the center of the case, the prosecutor’s office is trying to connect the fallout from Trump’s comments about it to Daniels’ payment, as part of efforts to portray Trump’s accusations as a criminal conspiracy to corruptly influence the 2016 elections.

Hicks detailed knowledge of hush payments made to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

In discussing McDougal’s payment, Hicks testified that Trump expressed concern about how his wife, Melania, would react, reinforcing one of Trump’s defenses in the case: that the motivation behind the hush money was to avoid embarrassment for Trump’s family, rather than to preserve his political fortunes before the elections.

But at other times, Hicks gave key testimony to the prosecution’s election conspiracy case. She testified about a conversation she had with Trump where he indicated that former fixer Michael Cohen had made the payment to Daniels out of the kindness of his heart, a characterization she questioned.

Hicks added that Trump told her it was a good thing the Daniels payment story had caused a stir after he had already won the 2016 election, just before she broke down on the stand.

Prosecutors say the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape upped the ante to let Daniels’ salacious allegations surface publicly just before Election Day, trying to convince jurors that the hush money deal was part of a criminal conspiracy. wider.

Hicks was mentioned early in the trial during testimony by former National Enquirer editor David Pecker, who said he was in the room when Pecker met with Trump to initially set up a deal to “catch and kill” salacious stories about the then-candidate for never appear in the news.

Some of Hicks’ most compelling testimony was her account of the damage control she achieved during the two hours between the time the campaign was notified about the “Access Hollywood” tape by the Post and the story’s publication.

Hicks said two strategies emerged when she forwarded the Post’s request for comment to four senior campaign aides, including Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon.

“I need to listen to the tape to make sure” it’s correct or “deny, deny, deny.”

“Strategy number two would be a little more difficult,” Hicks said upon realizing the reporter had provided a transcript of the tape.

Hicks then went upstairs to a Trump Tower conference room, she said, where Trump was conducting a debate preparation session against his then-rival, Hillary Clinton.

Hicks said she motioned for some aides to join her outside so as not to disrupt the preparations, and they discussed what to do.

“Everyone was just absorbing the shock,” Hicks testified.

Trump, who could see them through the conference room windows, finally realized there was a problem and demanded that his aides go back inside and explain the situation, Hicks said.

When confronted with the request for comment, Trump told Hicks that “it didn’t sound like something he would say,” she testified. But the first time he saw the tape he was upset, she said. He later told her the comments were “pretty standard stuff for two guys talking.”

After a weekend filled with Republicans struggling to figure out what to do, including what would happen if Trump ended his candidacy at the end of the election cycle, the former reality TV host managed to reframe media attention toward his efforts to arrest accusers of sexual abuse. of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, in a VIP box at the same debate he was preparing for at the time the “Access Hollywood” tape was leaked.

Trump defeated Clinton in the general election a month later.

Brett Samuels contributed.