Hope Hicks wept on the stand today in the hush money trial of her former boss moments after a prosecutor had finished questioning her about her dealings with Trump and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. Finished talking to Assistant D.A. Matthew Coloangela on the stand in Manhattan, the former White House Communications Director had just begun taking questions from a defense lawyer when she turned her head away from the courtroom gallery and, crying audibly, reached for a tissue to dab away tears.
“Ms. Hicks, do you need a break?” Judge Juan Merchan asked of the much anticipated witness. “Yes,” she replied in a shaky voice.
The court recessed for about 10 minutes, and Ms. Hicks returned to the stand. “Sorry about that,” she said.
Earlier, Hicks discussed the Trump campaign’s decision to deny a Wall Street Journal story about American Media’s hush money deal with former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The story was published four days before the 2016 election and it also mentioned porn actor Stormy Daniels.
Hicks, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, testified that her instructions to tell the Journal that Trump denied any sexual involvement with either woman came directly from Trump himself. “I know very clearly that he stated the denials,” she said.
When Cohen later texted her “I have a statement from Storm denying everything,” Hicks testified, “I didn’t know what he was talking about and I didn’t want to know.”
In February, after the election, The New York Times reported that Cohen admitted to paying $130,000 to Daniels for her silence — the payment that triggered the Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation of Trump and led to his indictment on charges of falsifying business records to conceal a reimbursement of Cohen.
Hicks testified that Trump told her, based on his own conversation about the Times article with Cohen, “He did it out of the kindness of his own heart and he never told anybody about it.”
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo asked Hicks if that sounded like the Michael Cohen she knew — a question that drew an objection from the defense, which Judge Merchan overruled.
“I’d say that would be out of character for Michael,” Hicks replied. “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person.”
In a gentle cross-examination by Trump lawyer Emil Bove after her brief break to compose herself, Hicks described Cohen as a nuisance — someone continually inserting himself into a presidential campaign in which he had no official role.
“He liked to call himself a fixer or Mr. Fix-it, and it was only because he first broke it,” she said with a laugh.
Source : https://deadline.com/2024/05/url-hope-hicks-testifies-trump-hush-money-trial-1235903664