Why Hope Hicks’s Testimony Matters
In her tearful turn on the witness stand, the longtime Trump loyalist undermined his defenses.
THE CRIMINAL TRIAL IN MANHATTAN on 34 counts charging Donald J. Trump with falsifying business records in order to conceal another crime isn’t going well for Trump. His former aide and confidante, Hope Hicks, helped establish some key pillars of the government’s case. Testifying pursuant to a subpoena, she was obviously telling the truth on Friday—as indicated by the fact that she broke down in tears after the first question was posed on cross-examination. The judge called a recess for several minutes.
Bear in mind that the government’s charges that Trump falsified business records, on their face, seem rather superficial. The business records in question were all internal—nothing allegedly false was given to New York or federal tax authorities, or even to banks. The misdeeds arise instead from entries in (1) “the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust,” (2) “Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Account check[s] and check stub[s],” (3) “Donald J. Trump account check[s] and check stub[s],” and (4) invoices “from Michael Cohen . . . marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust”—all which were “kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.”
These charges, standing alone, are misdemeanors, usually tacked on by the Manhattan district attorney to more serious charges. They relate to a $130,000 “hush money” payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels who claimed to have had an affair with Trump in the runup to the 2016 election, but were instead accounted for as legal expenses. The payment was originally made to Daniels by Trump’s former lawyer and overall fixer, Michael Cohen. Trump reimbursed Cohen over a series of payments invoiced as legal fees, with extra money tacked on to cover the income taxes Cohen would have to pay under the ruse that it was income, not reimbursement for a payment to Daniels.
What bumps the misdemeanors up to felonies is the government’s claim that the false entries were made “with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof.” That second crime, according to the government, involved the violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act’s limits on corporate and individual contributions to a campaign and New York law’s ban on conspiracies to influence elections by “unlawful means.” Central to the government’s theory of the case is the timeline of the 2016 campaign. On October 7, 2016, the Washington Post broke the Access Hollywood tape recording of Trump’s 2005 remarks about sexually assaulting women. The campaign was panicking. Daniels was paid off soon afterwards—on October 27, 2016, just days before voters went to the polls.
Trump’s main lines of defense are, first, that Cohen, not Trump, orchestrated the payoff, and second, that the National Enquirer was tapped to bury that story and others in order to protect his family, not to influence the election, so he could not have had the criminal intent to defraud voters. Another theme seems to be that hush money payoffs are just what rich and famous people do, and they’re not illegal. Trump’s legal team is also expected to try to demolish the credibility of Cohen as an established perjurer, and also take shots at Daniels, the theory being that she was trying to extort money out of Trump when he was highly vulnerable politically.
And this is why Hicks’s testimony may prove pivotal: She made the majority of these defenses harder to buy, bolstering the government’s case that Trump knew about the payment, that it was made to influence the election, and that Trump may not be telling the truth about it.
Hicks was asked about the Access Hollywood tape and said that its release was a “damaging development” that “stunned” her. “It’s hard to describe,” she said. “It was definitely concerning. And I had a good sense that this was going to be a massive story and sort of dominate the news cycle for the next several days, at least . . . a damaging development” that was “kind of pulling us backwards, and it was going to be difficult to overcome.” The media reaction “was intense,” she added, and “dominated coverage for I would say 36 hours leading up to the debate” that weekend. “At the time I got the email” about the tape, she explained, “we were anticipating a Category 4 hurricane making landfall somewhere on the East Coast.” But “I don’t think anyone remembers where that hurricane made landfall” because the Access Hollywood scandal took everyone’s attention. Hicks also testified that Trump lost endorsements as a result of the tape and that other Republicans began distancing themselves.
This testimony underscored the government’s contention that silencing Daniels was a direct response to the Access Hollywood tape during a crucial time in the campaign, and that there was a concern it could derail the whole thing. Adding a sordid extramarital affair to the mix could have proved fatal to the campaign.
Then Hicks testified about a conversation with Trump himself.
In February 2018, Cohen told the New York Times that he had made the payment to Daniels. Hicks was asked by the prosecution about Trump’s reaction to the story. She said that “President Trump was saying that he had spoken to Michael and that Michael had paid this woman to protect him from a false allegation and that Michael felt like it was his job to protect him and that’s what he was doing.” She added that “he did it out of the kindness of his own heart—he never told anybody about it.” The prosecutor then asked Hicks if that was “in character” for Cohen, and she said: “I would say that would be out of character for Michael,” and that “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person, or selfless person. [He’s] the kind of person who seeks credit.” As for what Trump made of it, Hicks testified: “He thought that it was a generous thing to do and he was appreciative of the loyalty—that’s all I remember.”
Hicks—a highly credible witness—suggested that she was dubious of Trump’s assertion to her that it was Cohen’s initiative to pay Daniels.1 Presumably, Cohen will later testify that Trump has been lying when he says the scheme was all Cohen’s doing—an account that Hicks’s testimony now stands to corroborate.
Hicks went on to testify that Trump “wanted to know how it was playing”—that is, the Daniels story, which became public two years into his presidency. She said he specifically asked about “my thoughts, opinion about this story versus having a story—a different kind of story—before the campaign had Michael not made that payment.” Hicks then said something that will make it harder for Trump’s defense team to refute the claim that he had criminal intent. She said: “I think Mr. Trump’s opinion was that it was better to be dealing with it now, and it would have been bad to have that story coming out before the election.”
Hicks’s cross-examination resumes on Monday. Trump’s counsel will have to tread carefully, because no jury wants to see a credible witness bullied, especially after she broke down crying on the stand just three days before. For Hicks, one has to wonder whether her tears were about the stress of the ordeal, a lingering fondness for her former boss, or something more disturbing. We all know how the former president deals with disloyal people.
Correction (May 6, 2024, 2:30 p.m.): As originally written, this article suggested that Hicks “confirmed that Trump appeared to have had knowledge of the Daniels payment at the time it was made.” That phrase has been deleted; Hicks’s conversation with Trump revealed his awareness of the payment two years later.
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