Trump’s week in court: Gasps and a pick-up in pace as Hope Hicks is called

“The people call Hope Hicks,” came the announcement shortly before 11.30am on Friday. There were gasps, apparently, in the overflow room where members of the public had forsaken a sunny day in Manhattan to explore the danker details of Donald Trump’s campaign crisis management in the run-up to the 2016 election.

The anticipated testimony of Hicks, who was one of Trump’s most trusted advisers in the White House, quickened the pace of a trial which, for much of the week, saw the prosecution attempt to construct the stage-set for its central contention: that falsified business records of Trump, relating to “hush money” payments to buy the silence of women who said they had sexual encounters with him, were designed to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Hicks succeeded Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director in 2017, having joined the Trump Organisation three years earlier at the age of 26. She later served in the role of counsellor to the president, until January 2021. Disclosing that she was “nervous” on the stand, Hicks said she has not been in contact with her former boss since the summer of 2022 and described him as “a very good multitasker” and “a very hard worker” before offering a flattering synopsis of the way he directed communications before and after the election.

Hicks was presented with emails of her reaction to a Washington Post request for a response to the infamous Access Hollywood tape in October of 2016, in which Trump boasted about forcing himself on women. She had forwarded the email to colleagues stating, “Need to hear the tape to be sure” and “Deny, deny, deny”. Hicks said in court she was concerned and described her reaction as a “reflex”.

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The line of questioning directed towards Hicks was designed to establish for the jury the mood within the Trump campaign that informed the urgent need to arrange the hush-money payments.

“The tape was damaging. This was a crisis,” Hicks said before recalling that while Trump was concerned that claims of sexual misconduct could damage his campaign, “I think he felt like it [the content of the tape] was pretty standard stuff for two guys chatting to each other.”

She said that she first heard the name of Karen McDougal on November 4th, 2016, when contacted by the Wall Street Journal and had heard the name of Stormy Daniels on one occasion previous to that date. Both women claimed that they had an affair with Trump.

Over the course of the morning, Hicks was depicted by reporters in the courtroom as a likable witness who offered clear if concise and cautious answers. She is appearing under subpoena and holds no animosity towards Trump but, reportedly, did not look directly at her former boss during her evidence. Hicks left the defence counsel with a choice of how to cross-examine someone who was a key figure in the Trump administration and has returned into his world now as an amicable witness.

[ Trump lawyer suggests ‘hush money’ payment was extortion ]

Much of Thursday had been taken up with the testimony and cross-examination of Keith Davidson, the one-time lawyer for both Daniels and McDougal and the person who negotiated with Michael Cohen, who served as “fixer” for Trump and brokered the hush-money payments for both women.

The evidence heard was a prolonged trawl through the netherworld of celebrity scandal payments, with Emil Bove, defence attorney for Trump, focusing on a series of previous deals for clients who sought payments in return for information on celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen. At times the exchanges became sparky. Bove said Davidson “extracted” money from Sheen. “If you’re not here to play legal games, don’t say ‘extract’,” Davidson snapped at one stage.

The evidence heard by the early witnesses all serves as a drumroll to the eventual appearance of Cohen, whom Davidson presented as a hectoring, insistent presence, peppering him with phone calls and later pouring out his woes to Davidson when, after the 2016 election, he was not given an official role on Trump’s White House staff. “I thought he was going to kill himself,” Davidson said of Cohen’s despondent mood that winter.

As a witness, he possibly compromised the argument the prosecution is intent on establishing, stating that he did not believe the agreement with Daniels was a “hush money” payment; instead, he saw it as a “consideration for a civil settlement”. The jury also heard a tape recording made by Cohen of a conversation with Trump, in which he discussed a payment to McDougal, a model and actress who claimed to have had an affair with the businessman a decade before he first ran for president.

Friday morning began with another firm but understated rebuke for the former president from Juan Merchan, the no-drama judge presiding over the case.

On Thursday, Trump had stopped to tell reporters: “I’m not allowed to testify, I’m under a gag order ... I guess? I can’t really testify,” he said turning to his defence counsel Todd Blanche, who managed to both nod and shake his head simultaneously. “Because this judge is totally conflicted; he has me under an unconstitutional gag order. Nobody has ever had that before. We don’t like it and it’s not fair.”

Before Friday’s hearing got under way, judge Merchan corrected the assertion, telling Trump and his legal team that he has an “absolute” right to take the stand if he so chooses.

That is unlikely to happen.

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