Trump trial to silence the money: Hope Hicks reports on the political storm in 2016

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was gripped by concerns about the potential political damage of a tape that showed Trump bragging about sexually grabbing women without their permission, longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks testified on Tuesday. Friday in his hush money trial.

Hicks, a former White House staffer, was forced to testify by Manhattan prosecutors, who hope her comments will bolster their argument that the uproar over the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape prompted Trump’s then-lawyer to bribe porn star Stormy Daniels to bury a negative story that could jeopardize his 2016 presidential bid.

Once one of Trump’s closest confidants, Hicks provided a window into the chaotic aftermath of the tape’s release just days before a crucial debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton. It was recorded in 2005 but was not seen by the public until October 7, 2016, about a month before Election Day. Hicks described being surprised and meeting with other Trump advisers after learning of the tape’s existence from the Washington Post reporter who broke the story. Hicks forwarded the reporter’s request to campaign leadership with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny,” she said.

“I had the good sense to believe that this would be a huge story and that it would dominate the news cycle for the next few days,” Hicks testified. “This was a harmful development.”

She added: “It was just pulling us back in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”

Prosecutors called her to the witness stand to bolster their case, alleging that Trump worked to prevent damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sought to establish this link not only to secure a conviction, but also to persuade the public of the importance of the case, which could be the only one of the four cases against Trump to be tried this year.

Hicks told jurors that Trump claimed to know nothing about the $130,000 payment to Daniels by her then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to prevent her from going public with allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump. But, Hicks said, Trump ultimately believed that burying Daniels’ story was prudent, saying he thought “it would have been bad for this story to come out before the election.”

Elsewhere, Hicks’ testimony appeared to help the defense’s claim that the former president was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which he called an attempt to derail his campaign to regain the White House in November.

Under questioning from Trump’s lawyer, Hicks told jurors he was concerned about the effect of the “Access Hollywood” tape on his family. And when the Wall Street Journal published a story revealing former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s affair allegations shortly before the election, Hicks said Trump was concerned about his wife seeing the story and asked Hicks to make sure that the newspapers were not delivered to his home that morning. .

But when asked if Trump was also concerned about the story’s impact on the campaign, Hicks responded that everything they said during that period was viewed through the lens of the campaign. Trump used to ask her, “How are you playing?” as a way to gauge how her appearances, speeches and policies were reaching voters, she said.

Hicks’ closeness to Trump over the years has made her a figure of interest to both Congress and criminal investigators, who have sought her testimony on numerous occasions on topics ranging from Russian election interference to Trump’s election defeat and the subsequent January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

She appeared reluctant to be in court, taking a deep breath as she approached the microphone and acknowledging that she was “very nervous.” She later began crying on the witness stand, forcing the court to pause briefly, when Trump’s lawyer, Emil Bove, began asking her to reflect on her time at the Trump Organization before he brought her in. his 2016 campaign.

Referring to his former boss as “Mr. Trump” and later “President Trump” when talking about her time in the White House, she told the court that she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022. Although she is no longer in Trump’s inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms when the prosecutor began questioning her about her past.

She told how the political storm that followed the release of the tape was so intense that it took a real storm out of the headlines. Before the tape was made public, the news was dominated by a Category 4 hurricane moving toward the East Coast.

“I don’t think anyone remembers” where the hurricane occurred, Hicks told jurors.

Hurricane Matthew, which hit Haiti and Cuba as a Category 4 storm, made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on October 8, 2016, the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape was released.

Promoters I spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build the basis of his case accusing Trump of 34 counts of falsifying the Trump Organization’s internal business records. They are laying the groundwork for crucial testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels for his silence earlier he went to prison for the secret money scheme.

Testimony will resume on Monday. The trial could last another month or more, with key witnesses yet to be called, including Cohen and Daniels.

One of the most important pieces of evidence released to jurors this week was a recording of a meeting between Trump and Cohen before the 2016 election, in which they discussed a plan to buy the rights to McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never be released. outside. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.

At one point, Trump can be heard saying, “How much do we have to pay for this? A fifth?”

In a victory for Trump, late in the week Judge Juan M. Merchan denied a request from prosecutors to ask Trump, if he decided to testify, about being held in contempt of court for violations of the gag order in the case. Merchan said allowing this would be “so prejudicial that it would be very, very difficult for the jury to ignore it.”

Trump this week paid your $9,000 fine for violating the gag order that prohibits him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and certain other people connected to the case.

His lawyer, Todd Blanche, told the judge Friday that they are appealing the finding that Trump violated the gag order. Blanche said they had a particular problem with the penalties for what are known as reposts — cases in which Trump shared someone else’s post with his followers.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington and Ruth Brown and Michelle Price in New York contributed to this report.