Hope Hicks, a top former adviser to Donald Trump, said in a statement Friday that in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump told her to deny that he had a sexual relationship with the porn star. Stormy Daniels.
Hicks' testimony gave jurors an inside look at damage control efforts when Trump was repeatedly accused of inappropriate sexual conduct in the final weeks of his victorious White House campaign.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to Daniels, who was threatening to go public with her story about their 2006 sexual encounter.
In testimony, Hicks said he told Trump four days before Nov. 8, 2016, Election Day, that the Wall Street Journal would publish details of the story about Daniels.
“He wanted to make sure that any kind of relationship was denied,” said Hicks, who served as campaign press secretary.
She said Trump did not want his wife, Melania Trump, to see the report, which also included accusations that he had an affair with former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump denied having had a relationship with the two women.
“He was concerned about how this would be viewed by his wife and wanted me to make sure the newspapers were not delivered to the residence that morning,” Hicks said.
Prosecutors in the first criminal trial of a former US president argued that the payment to Daniels corrupted the election by suppressing news that could have influenced voters who, at the time, were deciding between supporting Republican Trump or Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent.
Prosecutors say Trump falsified records to cover up violations of election and tax laws, which could earn the Republican a sentence of up to four years in prison.
Hicks' testimony could help the former president's defense argue that he paid Daniels to prevent his wife, not voters, from hearing the adult film star's allegations.
According to Hicks, Trump said that Michael Cohen, then the Republican's personal lawyer, paid the porn actress to “protect him from a false allegation” and out of “the goodness of his heart.”
Hicks said he thought it was strange. “I didn’t know Michael as an especially charitable or altruistic person,” he testified. The former advisor became briefly emotional during the testimony.
Trump, the Republican presidential candidate again this year, sat expressionless in the dock during the testimony of the former aide, who was the first person to appear as a witness and who worked on the campaign in 2016, in the trial that has lasted 11 days.
The 12 jurors and six alternates have not yet heard from the main players in the case, including actress Stormy Daniels and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who organized the payment.
Earlier, the judge presiding over the trial told the former president that the gag order imposed on comments about witnesses and jurors would not prevent him from testifying, contradicting what Trump had told reporters on Thursday (2).
“I want to emphasize to Mr. Trump: you have the absolute right to testify at trial,” said Judge Juan Merchan.
The Republican said his legal team would try to overturn the gag order, which prohibits him from making public comments about jurors, witnesses, the judge's family and prosecutors if those statements are intended to interfere with the case.
Merchan fined Trump $9,000 on Tuesday for violating the order and signaled on Thursday that he may impose more fines for what prosecutors say are other violations. Merchan said Trump could be arrested if he didn't change his behavior.
Trump says the case is an attempt by Democrats to hurt his chances of defeating Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The case includes charges of adultery and bribery, but is widely considered to be less serious than the other three criminal cases Trump is expected to face.
The other lawsuits accuse him of trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling confidential documents after leaving office. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of these charges.
Still, a guilty verdict could harm Trump's presidential candidacy, according to Reuters/Ipsos polls.
Source: CNN Brasil
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