Trump Trial to Resume after Teary Testimony from Key Aide Hope Hicks

Hicks told jurors on Friday that Trump wielded complete control over his 2016 presidential campaign – including a media strategy which, prosecutors allege, involved illicit business records for hush-money payments, The Guardian reported.

Hicks’ testimony might prove to be a coup for prosecutors.

They must establish that Trump plotted with aides – then lawyer Michael Cohen and tabloid honcho David Pecker – to bury negative stories that could have thwarted his presidential bid, including accounts of extramarital affairs with adult actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Cohen allegedly paid $130,000 to Daniels in exchange for her silence; prosecutors contend that Trump represented repayments to him as legal services, constituting felony falsification of business records.

By putting Trump at the center of his media strategy, Hicks’ testimony could bolster prosecutors’ argument that he was well aware of this catch-and-kill scheme, and the financial machinations used to allegedly cover up these payouts.

Hicks’ testimony also provided motive for this alleged scheme. When Trump’s campaign learned that the Washington Post was going to publish a recording where Trump bragged about groping women and grabbing them “by the pussy”, Hicks said staffers thought “this was a crisis”.

As Trump tried to downplay the remarks as “locker room talk,” it was even more imperative that any alleged boorishness remained related to words – not actions – for the sake of his campaign. Allegations about physical impropriety emerged soon thereafter, however, prompting Cohen’s scramble to conceal Daniels’ account, prosecutors say.

Hicks also recalled a conversation with Trump in the wake of a February 2018 New York Times article in which Michael Cohen said that he had paid Daniels before the election but insisted it was not a campaign contribution. The Times article came in the wake of a Wall Street Journal article that uncovered Cohen’s payment to Daniels.

“He wanted to know how it was playing, and just my thoughts and opinion about this story versus having the story – a different kind of story before the campaign had Michael not made that payment,” Hicks recalled Trump saying in response to prosecutor Matthew Colangelo’s question.

“And I think Mr. Trump’s opinion was (that) it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”

Hicks’ recollection of Trump’s commentary on timing was her final statement on direct testimony.

She started crying right after cross-examination commenced. Hicks said “um, yes, please” if she needed a break. She exited judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom with a crumpled piece of tissue in her hand.