Former White House communications director Hope Hicks took the stand Friday at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, a tense reunion between the former president and a woman who was once one of his closest aides.
“I’m very nervous,” Hicks said as she took the stand as the ninth witness to be called in the case, and led the jury through a dramatic inside account of Trump’s reaction to the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that nearly derailed her decision. first presidential candidacy.
Hicks worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign before joining his administration. Another witness, former National Enquirer editor David Pecker, said he walked in and out of a key meeting he had with Trump and his then-lawyer Michael Cohen in 2015, where Pecker agreed to help them suppress stories that could harm the Trump campaign.
Cohen and Pecker are key figures in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump. Prosecutors say the three men organized a scheme that resulted in Cohen paying adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006. Trump later reimbursed Cohen for payments the prosecutor says he falsely classified as legal expenses. .
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records. He also denied having an affair with Daniels or another woman at the center of the case, former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Hicks, who also worked for the Trump Organization, said Friday that he has not spoken to Trump in nearly two years.
She told the jury that when she worked on the Trump campaign as press secretary starting in 2015, they would speak several times a day. Asked about the size of the press team, Hicks said, “It was just me and Mr. Trump” until the final stages of his successful tenure, and she praised his communications and branding skills.
“We were all just following his lead,” she said.
Asked if she was in and out of a meeting with Pecker, she said she didn’t remember, but that it was “possible.” She said she remembered Trump praising articles the Enquirer had done criticizing his then-Republican rivals Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz. She recalled that Trump called an article that tried to link Cruz’s father to the Kennedy assassination “great reporting.” Pecker testified that the play was a mixture.
She said the size of the team had increased in October 2016, when she received an email from a Washington Post reporter with an “extremely urgent request” to comment on what later became known as the “Access Hollywood” tape. The 2005 Hot Mic recording includes audio of Trump making lewd comments about women and saying he can grope them without their consent.
Hicks said she was “very concerned” about the email – both the content “and the lack of time to respond.” She said she forwarded the request to campaign leadership, including Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon and Jason Miller. She finally found them preparing for Trump’s debate with Hillary Clinton.
She said Trump asked her what was going on and she read the email aloud to him. She said she had a vague memory of beginning to read the transcript of her comments that the Post reporter had sent, and that Trump then read the rest to himself. “That doesn’t sound like something I would say,” she quoted him as saying.
When they began talking about how to respond, Trump suggested the tape was no big deal and “wasn’t anything to get so upset about,” Hicks said and called it a “pretty standard thing for two guys” talking.
Hicks said she was “shocked” when she finally heard the tape and had a feeling it was going to be a “huge story” and a “crisis.”
The campaign released a brief statement from Trump calling the comments “locker room banter.” He later tweeted a video statement, where he said “I said that, I was wrong and I apologize,” before attacking Clinton.
Hicks said several Republicans denounced Trump after the tape’s release, and she reached out to Cohen to ask about another potentially damaging tape. Hicks did not elaborate on that call before the jury, but previously told the House Judiciary Committee she asked Cohen to contact TMZ founder Harvey Levin about the existence of rumors of a tape involving Trump and Russian prostitutes. The allegation was included in the so-called Steele dossier — the salacious and largely unverified collection of Trump’s ties to Russia, assembled by a former British spy.
Hicks said another crisis arose just days before Election Day 2016, when the Wall Street Journal asked him for comment on a $150,000 hush-money agreement between Enquirer publisher AMI and McDougal. Hicks said she had never heard McDougal’s name before and reached out to Cohen, who she suspected was lying about not knowing anything about it. She then reached out to Pecker, who said McDougal was being paid for fitness columns and magazine covers and “it was all very legitimate.”
She said she worked with Trump and Cohen on a statement denying the allegations. The Journal quoted her as saying, “We are not aware of any of this” and that McDougal’s claim of an affair was “completely false.”
His testimony came after the court heard from two witnesses from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Before testimony resumed, Trump attorney Todd Blanche also argued against Judge Juan Merchan allowing evidence of the 2016 crime. Washington Post article who broke the news of the Access Hollywood tape.
Merchan had previously said he would allow a transcript of Trump’s comments into evidence, but not the tape itself. Blanche argued Friday that allowing the Post story to be seen by the jury would lead to the danger of “unfair prejudice.” The prosecutor’s office said the article is necessary to establish the time frame — it was after the tape was released that Trump’s lawyer made a secret payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The judge said both sides should try to resolve the timing issue, but told the prosecutor’s office that he didn’t want the jury to see the smiling 2005 photo of Trump with actress and Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, who accompanied the article because he thought it would be “highly damaging”.
When court resumed, jurors were shown video of the then-Republican presidential candidate saying, “I was wrong and I apologize.” They also saw a tweet from October 2016 that said, “No one has more respect for women than me!”
Prosecutors also displayed a Trump Truth Social post from 2023 where he attacked Daniels, whom he called “Horseface.” “She doesn’t know anything about me,” he wrote.
The social media posts were turned into evidence after jurors finished hearing testimony from the forensic analyst who inspected data from Cohen’s phones, including secret text messages and recordings.
As proceedings began on Friday, Merchan addressed an inaccurate claim Trump made outside court a day earlier.
In comments outside the courtroom on Thursday, Trump said: “I am not authorized to testify. I am under a gag order” and he said he would be appealing. “I am not authorized to testify because this judge, who is in complete conflict, has placed me under an unconstitutional gag order,” he reiterated.
Merchan said Friday that he refuted Trump’s claims. “It doesn’t prohibit you from taking a stance,” Merchan said. Commonly known as a “gag order,” the judge’s decision is actually called an order “restraining extrajudicial statements” – statements made outside of the courtroom.
“As the name of the order indicates, it only applies to extrajudicial statements,” Merchan said. Trump then muttered, “Thank you.”
On his way to court on Friday, Trump complained: “This judge took away my constitutional right.” “I think we are presenting a constitutional motion today,” he said.
Merchan this week found Trump in criminal contempt and fined him $9,000 for violating that order with nine of his social media and campaign posts. Prosecutors argued Thursday that he should be charged with contempt for additional alleged violations. Merchan has not yet commented on the motion.
The court day will end a little early on Friday. Merchan said he will stop at 3:45 p.m. ET, instead of the traditional 4:30 p.m., because one of the jurors has an appointment.
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