Hope Hicks Will Reportedly Testify in Trump’s Hush Money Trial
![Hope Hicks, senior adviser to the president, attends services with US President Donald Trump at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 18, 2020. - President Donald Trump and rival Joe Biden hit the ground Sunday in the swing states that will decide the US election, as the campaign turns increasingly vicious 16 days before voting. Trump, scrambling to make up lost ground, is on a furious multi-state barnstorming tour hopping from Nevada to California and then back to Nevada for a day of rallies and fundraising. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/themes/vip/pmc-rollingstone-2022/assets/public/lazyload-fallback.gif)
Former Donald Trump adviser and White House Communications Director Hope Hicks will reportedly testify in the New York criminal hush money trial of her ex-employer.
According to MSNBC, Hicks has been tapped to testify in the trial, which is slated to begin April 15. Last March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged the former president with 34 separate felony counts of falsifying business records. The case revolves around allegations that a 2016 hush-money payment made at Trump’s direction to adult film actress Stormy Daniels violated campaign finance laws.
The ex-Trump adviser has kept a low profile since departing the White House alongside the former president in 2021. Hicks was interviewed by New York prosecutors in March of last year, providing hours of unreleased testimony just weeks before a New York grand jury voted to indict the former president.
“The question is, does Hope Hicks have testimony to provide about the extent to which Donald Trump was signing off, specifically on those payments?” NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard said on Monday. Hicks was reportedly involved in early conversations regarding the Trump campaign’s response to the possibility that Daniels would go public with her claims of an affair with Trump. FBI records pertaining to the Justice Department’s case against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen — who coordinated the hush money payments to Daniels — suggest Hicks may have been privy to conversation about the matter.
The former president himself is already gearing up for an ugly court battle. Trump spent much of last week attacking the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case. Last week, Merchan granted prosecutors a request for a gag order barring Trump from commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, and jurors involved in the case. Prosecutors believe the order also applies to Merchan’s daughter. Trump clearly doesn’t care.