US President Donald Trump reacts while standing next to former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks outside the Oval Office as he departs the White House for a visit to Cleveland, Ohio on March 29, 2018 in Washington DC, US. Photo taken on March 29, 2018.
Carlos Barria reuters
Former top White House communications aide Hope Hicks sobbed on the witness stand Friday as a lawyer Donald Trump Began cross-examination of her testimony in the former president’s criminal secret money trial.
Hicks and the jury left the courtroom briefly while he composed himself.
The emotional outburst came at the beginning of defense lawyers’ time to question Hicks, who spoke just feet away from her former boss in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Prosecutors had asked Hicks about the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that threatened Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign just weeks before Election Day.
“Everyone was reeling from the shock of it,” Hicks testified.
Hicks, a top press aide for the campaign at the time, said she was “very concerned” when she received an email from The Washington Post on October 7, 2016, seeking comment on the tape in which Trump was accused of sexual misconduct. Was heard boasting. ,
Hicks was concerned “about the content of the emails” and “the lack of time to respond,” she testified.
He said he informed other campaign leaders, including Jason Miller, David Bost, Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. He wrote that the initial strategy should be that they “need to hear the tape to be sure” and “deny, deny, deny.”
When Trump read the transcript of the tape, he said, “Don’t think I would say anything,” Hicks testified.
In a brief cross-examination, Hicks told Trump’s attorney that she was not involved in the Trump Organization’s record-keeping practices while she was in the White House.
The tape is a key part of the case against Trump, who is accused of falsifying records as part of a scheme to silence damaging information about him before the 2016 election.
Attorney Keith Davidson testified Tuesday that the tape has increased media interest in porn star Stormy Daniels’ claim that she had sex with Trump while they were married several years ago.
“I think before, even before [the] ‘There was very little interest in the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, as far as I understand,” said Davidson, who represented Daniels and helped broker a hush-hush payment of $130,000.
Hicks, 35, has deep roots in Trump’s business and political career, and was present at many of the scandals that defined Trump’s campaign and his tenure in office. She worked for the Trump Organization before being selected as Trump’s campaign press secretary in early 2015. Hicks worked for Trump during his four years in the White House.
Hicks, who appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court under subpoena, testified that she had not spoken to Trump since the summer or fall of 2022.
His testimony followed testimony from eight other witnesses, including Davidson, who negotiated six-figure hush money deals for Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments to Daniels. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of illegally trying to influence the election by purchasing and suppressing damaging information about him.
On Thursday, Judge Juan Merchan held a hearing on whether Trump again violated the gag order barring him from speaking about jurors, witnesses and others involved in the trial.
Marchen had already held Trump in criminal contempt for violating his speech restrictions nine times. The judge fined Trump the maximum $9,000 and warned him that future violations could lead to jail time. Prosecutors at Thursday’s hearing flagged four more alleged gag order violations by Trump, though they said they were not seeking to put him in jail.
Merchan has not yet ruled on additional alleged violations.
In two days of testimony, Davidson discussed his work drafting hush money deals with the National Enquirer and Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen, in the process highlighting how tabloids work to seek out false stories. We do.
David Pecker, former CEO of the Enquirer’s publisher, described his work as “checkbook journalism” in pretrial testimony and said he made deals with the understanding he was trying to help Trump’s election chances.
The night Trump won that election, Davidson messaged the then-editor-in-chief of the Inquirer, asking, “What have we done?”
He testified Thursday that the text was “like a gallows humor.” But he said he and the top editor, Dylan Howard, understood at the time that “our activities may have aided Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in some way.”
On cross-examination, Trump’s attorney emphasized that Davidson never met or spoke to Trump and that all of his information about the then-presidential candidate was secondhand.
After Davidson withdrew from the witness stand, prosecutors called Douglas Douse, a forensic analyst from Bragg’s office, who described his findings from Cohen’s phone.
Jurors heard a recording of Trump asking Cohen, “So what do we have to pay for this – 150?” And instructed his lawyer to “pay by cash”. Pecker’s company at the time, American Media, paid McDougall $150,000 for the rights to her affair claim as part of an alleged “catch and kill” plan to bury the story.