Hope Hicks, an ex-White House aide and longtime advisor to Donald Trump, broke down in tears while on the witness stand on Friday in the former president’s hush-money criminal trial.
- Hope Hicks, a former longtime advisor to Donald Trump, took the witness stand in his hush-money trial Friday.
- Just after Trump’s lawyer began cross-examining her, she broke down in tears.
- Hicks was Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and later his White House communications director.
Her voice cracked as she began answering questions Friday afternoon from Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove, who had asked her whether the Trump Organization created the position of Communications Director to get her to join the company in October 2014.
After answering “yes,” Hicks grabbed a tissue and turned to her left while sitting on the witness stand. She turned her face and body away from the courtroom audience.
“Ms. Hicks, do you need a break?” the trial judge Juan Merchan asked.ADVERTISEMENT
“Yes, please,” she responded in a cracked voice, while facing away from the judge.
After the judge announced a break just before 3 p.m., Hicks walked across the courtroom, passing by Trump without looking at him.
Hicks is a key witness in the trial, potentially linking Trump directly to what prosecutors call an election-influencing scheme to purchase a porn star’s silence in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
She said on the stand in the chilly 15th-floor downtown Manhattan courtroom that she was testifying pursuant to a subpoena in the historic case.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office allege Trump illegally falsified 34 business records by covering up a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
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