Ex-aide Hope Hicks gets emotional during Trump trial testimony
View: BBC reporter Nada Tawfik clarifies the information shared by Hope Hicks regarding the confidential payment agreement.
Kayla Epstein and Madeline Halpert were present in court, while Rachel Looker was in Washington, when the trial took place.
Ex-White House employee Hope Hicks got emotional towards the conclusion of her deposition on Friday in the hush-money lawsuit of former US President Donald Trump.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Ms Hicks acted as a spokesperson for Mr Trump and was a trusted friend.
Mr Trump declared that he did not commit the offence of concealing payment by falsifying business records, as he pleaded not guilty to 34 counts.
He has refused any misconduct allegations.
Ms. Hicks previously worked as the press secretary for the Trump campaign and held two separate periods as the White House communications director. Upon being called to testify in a New York courtroom, she expressed feeling greatly apprehensive by stating: "I'm feeling extremely nervous.''.
During her testimony, Ms Hicks became emotional when a lawyer representing Trump asked if a role in the White House was created specifically for her. She took a brief pause and then resumed her testimony.
Hicks shared her firsthand account of collaborating with the ex-president and discovering the Access Hollywood tape, which captured Mr Trump bragging he could get away with touching women's private parts because of his fame. The tape became public a few weeks prior to the 2016 presidential race.
At the beginning of her testimony, Ms Hicks responded to inquiries regarding the circumstances surrounding the dissemination of the recording.
When asked about hearing the tape, she mentioned feeling surprised and had a suspicion that it would become a very significant story.
The Washington Post got hold of the recording, and the journalist covering the event, David Fahrenthold, sent an email to Ms. Hicks requesting a response from the campaign of President Trump.
During her testimony, she declared that the email he sent her was the initial notice about the tape and inspected the message on display in the legal chamber.
Ms. Hicks mentioned that she sent the email to a few important members of the campaign team like Jason Miller, Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Bannon.
In the email, she mentioned that she would like to listen to the recording before giving a confirmation and also emphasized the importance of denying any wrongdoing.
During her court testimony, Ms Hicks mentioned that it was an automatic response to write "deny, deny, deny.''
According to Ms Hicks, the campaign staff met and exchanged the email with Mr Trump in a meeting.
During her testimony, Ms Hicks mentioned that everyone was still reeling from the news. She also stated that Trump denied saying anything of that nature.
"I was worried, extremely worried," she informed the court.
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"We were facing a challenging situation while determining our campaign's direction. It was dragging us backwards in a manner that seemed impossible to overcome."
When questioned about Donald Trump's response to the recording, Ms. Hicks believed that Trump perceived it as "typical conversation between two men."
In the blog post, it was shared that Hicks responded to inquiries regarding Donald Trump's response to a Wall Street Journal report. The report stated that Trump had been involved in multiple relationships with women, including Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Hicks mentioned Trump's concern about the report and was worried about how his wife would view it. He urged Hicks to ensure that newspapers carrying the story were not delivered to their home on the morning it was published. These statements were given as testimony.
The prosecutors questioned Ms Hicks regarding her conversations with Mr Cohen following the release of the Wall Street Journal article.
Mr. Cohen sent a message to Hicks stating that the story contained many insinuations but lacked sufficient evidence. In response, Hicks agreed with most of what was said, but she pointed out that the article would still get attention because the media can be unreliable.
Afterwards, Mr. Cohen responded stating that the tale was not attracting much attention.
Hicks stated in the courtroom that the tale did not receive as much attention as the one concerning the Access Hollywood recording.
During her statement, Ms Hicks had a tendency to express optimistic remarks towards her previous employer, even when discussing the negative consequences of certain events. Conversely, she was most critical of Cohen's actions.
When asked about President Trump's claim that Cohen would protect him simply out of the goodness of his heart, Hicks stated that it would be unlike Michael to do so.
According to Ms. Hicks, Cohen attempted to intervene in the campaign on several occasions although he wasn't directly involved.
According to Hicks, he enjoyed referring to himself as 'Fixer' or 'Mr Fix-it'. The odd thing is, these were only names he called himself after originally causing the problem.
During her testimony, Ms. Hicks discussed David Pecker who was previously the publisher of the magazine called National Enquirer.
In her testimony, she claimed to not remember attending a meeting in 2015 with the ex-president, Michael Cohen (who was Trump's lawyer at the time), and Mr. Pecker. Mr. Pecker testified that during this meeting, he promised to prevent the publishing of harmful stories about Trump, such as allegations of affairs, in order to assist with his campaign.
Last week, during his testimony, it was revealed that Mr. Pecker played a role in paying hush-money to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model, in exchange for her account of an alleged relationship with Trump.
Ms Hicks remembered conversations over the phone between Mr Pecker and Trump, wherein one of those talks, Trump congratulated Pecker on publishing a story concerning Trump's political opponent, Dr Ben Carson, and the allegations of medical misconduct.
According to Hicks, Trump said that this was deserving of a Pulitzer prize when he spoke to Pecker.
Earlier this week, it was decided by the court that Mr. Trump had disobeyed a restriction on speaking out during the trial on nine occasions. Consequently, he was ordered to pay a fine of $9,000, which comes to $1,000 per violation. Without delay, he paid the fine on Thursday, which was the last day for payment.
The penalty was settled by presenting two cashiers' checks to the court clerk, where one was worth $2,000 while the other was worth $7,000.
