Perhaps it would have been more important that this was an open hearing if only to observe how the meme of WH obstruction is now quite absurd. Even so, Hope Hicks reinforced the claim that Trump’s hush money antics were about a campaign finance violation.
The result is that it will be more important to keep Hope Hicks alive since she will have to come back to Congress. It was apparent that even with the objections, that Hicks was willing to lie for Individual-1 and that she seems to not recall much of her experiences of the year 2016.
The real story unattended to by the WH lawyers is that Trump’s involvement in the Michael Cohen hush money was corroborated by Hicks. The Trumpian claim was that they were personal and not related to the political campaign.
It wasn’t about Trump’s obstruction of justice or the behavior discussed in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which has been the focus of the coverage of Hicks’s testimony. Instead, it concerned the other set of crimes in which the president has been implicated: the criminal hush money payments made to two women in the run-up to the 2016 election, violating campaign finance laws.
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But Hicks’s testimony blows these excuses out of the water. One questioner pressed Hicks on an exchange she had with Cohen:
Q: It’s another text message exchange between yourself and Michael Cohen, November 5th, 2016. Do you recall what you were discussing in this exchange? Would it be helpful to read out loud into the record? I just was going to spare you, but —
HICKS No. No. That’s okay. Thank you. Yes, I remember. We were discussing the traction the Wall Street Journal story regarding Karen McDougal was getting.
Q: So when you say — I guess Cohen sent to you, “Keep praying!! It’s working!” When he says “it’s working,” do you recall what he meant by that?
HICKS: I guess that our prayers were being answered.
Q: When you made statements during the campaign that the President did not have any relationship with Stormy Daniels, did you have a basis for saying that? Did the President tell you that he did not have a relationship?
HICKS: Again, I was relaying information from the reporter to the different parties involved, primarily Michael and Mr. Trump, and that was the response that was dictated to me. I didn’t ask 268 about the nature of the relationships.
Now, the excuse that the hush money expenditure was merely a personal matter unrelated to the campaign is already highly dubious, given how close the payments were made to Election Day. And Cohen, of course, by pleading guilty, has admitted that the intention of the payments was to influence the campaign, though Trump’s defenders just say Cohen is a liar.
www.rawstory.com/...
(CNN) Former White House communications director Hope Hicks told lawmakers Wednesday that she had "never been asked to lie about matters of substance or consequence," contending that "white lies" she had told on behalf of President Donald Trump were about small matters, such as his availability.
The comments are part of
the 273-page transcript of Hicks' closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a document that revealed behind-the-scenes details of Trump's presidential campaign as well as her relationship to the now-commander in chief.
Asked if Trump ever asked anyone to lie during the campaign, Hicks said: "Not that I can recall."
But the transcript also showed just how much White House lawyers objected to the questioning.