Key Witness Hope Hicks Testifies in Donald Trump Trial for Hidden Payments to Stormy Daniels

A former adviser to Donald Trump, Hope Hicks, is testifying Friday with some anxiety, ending a second week of arguments in the trial of the former American president for hidden payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels.

In this relationship with great political stakes, the Republican candidate in the November election against the outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden is accused of 34 falsifications of accounting documents.

When she arrives at the stand, Hope Hicks, 35, says from the start she is “very nervous”.

The man who was the director of communications for the White House from 2017 to 2018, who was then an adviser from 2020 to 2021 when Donald Trump was president (2017-2021), says that she rose through the ranks within the Trump Organization real estate holding company. She joined in 2014, a year before the Republican businessman announced, in June 2015, his candidacy for the presidential election in November 2016.

When asked when her last contact with her former boss was, Ms Hicks replied: “Summer 2022”.

At the Trump Organization and until the announcement of Donald Trump’s candidacy for president, Hope Hicks spoke to him on the phone “every day”.

“Everyone (…) reported to Mr. Trump” because the Trump Organization operated as a “small family business,” she confirms, adding that Mr. Trump’s children, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric very involved in it.

The former president is very focused on what this key witness said, who was in the inner circle and was very important in the 2015-2016 campaign before he entered the White House.

She avoids meeting as much as possible in the courtroom, according to an AFP journalist.

When he arrived at the Manhattan court, Donald Trump was once again frustrated because this trial, which began on April 22, was removing him from the campaign. He criticized Judge Juan Merchan, whose impartiality he systematically challenges, for “wanting to present the case as cleverly as possible by allowing irrelevant evidence.” to him.

The alleged accounting lies would have been used to hide a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels in the home stretch of the 2016 presidential election, which narrowly won against Hillary Clinton.

This sum was used to buy her silence about an alleged sexual relationship she had with the real estate mogul in 2006, when he was already married to his current wife, Melania. A relationship that Donald Trump denies.

Finally, a confidentiality agreement was signed on 28 October 2016, a few days before the vote.

The $130,000 was paid by Donald Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, through a shell company.

He was reimbursed in 2017 by the billionaire’s holding company, the Trump Group, for expenses that are considered “legal fees”, and therefore the prosecutor for falsifying accounting documents .

– “Harassment” –

The ballet of witnesses continues on Friday with an expert hearing, which began on Thursday, on the credibility of the data extracted from Michael Cohen’s phones.

The latter, who says he acted at the request of the applicant and turned against his former boss, has not yet given evidence.

The whole point of the case is to determine what Donald Trump knew about these conversations behind the scenes.

In recent days, the defense has been working to undermine the credibility of the lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels during this case, Keith Davidson.

The former Republican president’s lawyers painted an unflattering picture of his evidence and methods.

Keith Davidson made a specialty of monetizing silence on embarrassing secrets from famous people, a practice described as “extortion” by one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Emil Bove.

Three years after leaving the White House in turmoil, Donald Trump enters the campaign charged in four cases, including that before the federal courts in Washington for allegations of attempts illegal to overturn the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden in 2020.

But because of appeals and procedural questions, the New York trial, on a smaller scale, may be the only one tried before the Nov. 5 election.

If he was re-elected, Donald Trump, once he was inaugurated in January 2025, could order the abandonment of the two federal cases against him, in Washington but also in Florida (east right), where he is accused of allegedly regulating casual access to classified documents. after leaving the White House.