Former high aide Hope Hicks cries as cross-examination begins

Former high White Home communications aide Hope Hicks began crying on the witness stand Friday as an legal professional for Donald Trump started cross-examining her testimony within the ex-president’s legal hush cash trial.

Hicks and the jury briefly left the courtroom whereas she composed herself.

The emotional outburst got here initially of the protection attorneys’ time to query Hicks, who spoke simply ft away from her former boss in Manhattan Supreme Court docket.

Prosecutors had requested Hicks in regards to the notorious “Entry Hollywood” tape that threatened Trump’s 2016 presidential marketing campaign simply weeks earlier than Election Day.

“Everybody was simply absorbing the shock of it,” Hicks testified.

Hicks, a high press aide for the marketing campaign on the time, mentioned she was “very involved” when she obtained an electronic mail from The Washington Publish on Oct. 7, 2016, looking for touch upon the tape by which Trump is heard bragging about sexual misconduct.

Hicks was involved “in regards to the contents of the e-mail” and about “the shortage of time to reply,” she testified.

She mentioned she notified different marketing campaign leaders, together with Jason Miller, David Bosse, Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. She wrote that the preliminary technique must be that they “want to listen to the tape to make sure” and to “deny, deny, deny.”

When Trump learn the transcript of the tape, he mentioned, “That does not sound like one thing I’d say,” Hicks testified.

In a short cross-examination, Hicks instructed Trump’s lawyer that she was not concerned with the Trump Group’s record-keeping practices whereas she was on the White Home.

The tape is a major piece of the case towards Trump, who’s charged with falsifying information as a part of a scheme to silence damaging details about him forward of the 2016 election.

Lawyer Keith Davidson testified Tuesday that the tape spurred a swell of media curiosity in porn star Stormy Daniels’ declare that she had intercourse with Trump whereas he was married years earlier.

“I believe earlier than, earlier than [the] ‘Entry Hollywood’ tape, there was little or no curiosity from what I perceive,” mentioned Davidson, who represented Daniels and helped dealer a $130,000 hush cash fee to her.

Hicks, 35, has deep roots in Trump’s enterprise and political lives, and she or he was current for lots of the scandals that outlined Trump’s marketing campaign and his time period in workplace. She labored for the Trump Group earlier than being tapped in early 2015 as Trump’s marketing campaign press secretary. Hicks labored for Trump over his 4 years within the White Home.

Hicks, showing in Manhattan Supreme Court docket underneath subpoena, testified that she has not spoken to Trump for the reason that summer season or fall of 2022.

Her testimony follows that of eight different witnesses together with Davidson, who negotiated six-figure hush cash offers for Daniels and former Playboy mannequin Karen McDougal forward of the 2016 presidential election.

Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying enterprise information associated to the fee to Daniels. Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg accuses Trump of unlawfully attempting to affect the election by shopping for and suppressing damaging details about him.

On Thursday, Decide Juan Merchan held a listening to on whether or not Trump violated the gag order once more, barring him from talking about jurors, witnesses and others concerned within the trial.

Merchan had already held Trump in legal contempt for violating his speech restrictions 9 occasions. The choose fined Trump $9,000, the utmost, and warned him that future violations might land him in jail. Prosecutors in Thursday’s listening to flagged 4 extra alleged gag order violations by Trump, although they mentioned they weren’t looking for to place him in jail.

Merchan has but to rule on the extra alleged violations.

Over two days of testimony, Davidson mentioned his work with the Nationwide Enquirer and Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen to craft the hush cash offers, within the course of shedding mild on how tabloids function of their hunt for lurid tales.

David Pecker, the previous CEO of the Enquirer’s writer, described his work in prior trial testimony as “checkbook journalism” and mentioned he made offers with the understanding of attempting to assist Trump’s election probabilities.

On the night time Trump gained that election, Davidson texted the Enquirer’s then-editor-in-chief, “What have we completed?”

He testified Thursday that the textual content was “kind of gallows humor.” However he added that he and the highest editor, Dylan Howard, understood on the time that “our actions might have in a roundabout way assisted the presidential marketing campaign of Donald Trump.”

On cross-examination, Trump’s legal professional burdened that Davidson by no means met or spoke with Trump and that each one his data in regards to the then-presidential candidate got here secondhand.

After Davidson left the witness stand, prosecutors known as Douglas Daus, a forensic analyst for Bragg’s workplace who detailed his findings from Cohen’s cellphone.

Jurors heard a recording of Trump saying asking Cohen, “So what can we received to pay for this — 150?” and instructing his lawyer to “pay with money.” Pecker’s firm on the time, American Media, paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her affair declare as a part of an alleged “catch and kill” scheme to bury the story.