Key Hush-Money Witness Just Exposed Trump’s Biggest Lie Yet

Hope Hicks dished out another doozy against her former boss Donald Trump Friday afternoon.

While testifying on the stand, Hicks—a former Trump Organization employee turned Trump 2016 campaign press secretary turned White House aide—revealed that Trump had been in communication with his former fixer Michael Cohen about hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. The thing is, Cohen had told The New York Times in February 2018 that he had sent the $130,000 payment by his own volition, and out of his own pocket.

Cohen claimed at the time that Trump had no knowledge of the payments. But Hicks recalled Trump saying that Cohen had “felt like it was his job to protect him” and “that’s what he was doing and he did it out of the kindness of his own heart and he never told anybody about it.”

But, when pressed by the prosecution, Hicks confessed that such a charitable act did seem “out of character” for the bombastic attorney.

“I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” Hicks said.

Still, even after claiming he had no knowledge of the hush-money payments, Trump understood it was prudent to bury the whole thing before the election.

“Mr. Trump’s opinion was that it was better to be dealing with it now and it would’ve been bad to have that story come out before the election,” she said.

This piece of testimony could prove crucial, according to MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin. Even though Hicks did not call Trump a liar outright, she did reveal that his current claims about the hush-money deal are dubious at best.

Earlier in the day, Hicks described Trump as a boss who was “very involved” and that the communications arm of Trump’s 2016 presidential bid was always “following his lead.”

Hicks continued to say that she had met David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and former CEO of its parent company, American Media Inc., several times, and knew of Pecker as a “friend of Mr. Trump.” She noted that she had been present for Trump’s phone calls with Pecker, including ones about some of the Enquirer’s hit pieces on Trump’s GOP opponents in the 2016 race.

Notably, Hicks specified that although she is testifying in the trial under subpoena, she is paying for her own legal representation and hasn’t spoken to Trump in nearly two years.

The 2016 release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Donald Trump made lewd comments about women to TV host Billy Bush, bothered Trump and his campaign a lot more than they told the public, his former aide Hope Hicks testified in court Friday during Trump’s hush-money trial. 

Hicks served as press secretary for the campaign during that time. She testified that Trump learned about the tape when then–Washington Post reporter David Farenthold emailed the campaign with a partial transcript, asking for comment. The prosecutor asked Hicks what her first reaction was, to which Hicks replied that she was “very concerned.” 

She forwarded the email with “FW: URGENT WashPost query” as the subject line to campaign leaders Jason Miller, David Bossie, Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Bannon. The text of the email read:

FLAGGING.  

1) [...] Need to hear the tape to be sure.

2) [...] Deny, deny, deny.”

Hicks testified that she thought the tape’s release would be a “massive story” leading the news cycle for at least several days. After watching Trump’s video response to the tape, which was posted to Twitter (now called X) on October 8, 2016, Hicks agreed with a prosecutor’s statement that Trump’s words downplaying the tape were very different from the actions the campaign took. She noted that stories about the tape even pushed a Category 4 hurricane out of the news. 

Prosecutors hope Hicks’s testimony can help them make the case that Donald Trump’s campaign went into a crisis mode after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, giving them reason to try to cover up other allegations of Trump’s extramarital affairs. However, some of those allegations were deemed inadmissible in the trial by Judge Juan Merchan. 

Earlier in her testimony, Hicks noted that Trump had a close, hands-on role in the campaign’s words and statements.

“He knew what he wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. We were always following his lead,” Hicks said. 

Trump is accused of trying to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election by paying her off through his attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, and is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Daniels and Cohen have yet to testify, so the most damaging information to Trump’s case may be yet to come. 

Another star witness in Donald Trump’s first criminal trial has opened up about the former president’s involvement in his staff’s communications, adding yet another dent to Trump’s legal defense.

Hope Hicks, a former Trump Organization employee turned Trump White House communications director, testified on Friday that she spoke with Trump every day while serving as the press secretary to his presidential campaign. She said that he was “very involved” and that the communications arm of Trump’s 2016 bid was always “following his lead.”

“He knew what he wanted to say and how we wanted to say it,” Hicks told the court. “We were always following his lead.”

Hicks continued to say that she had met David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and former CEO of its parent company, American Media Inc., several times, and knew of Pecker as a “friend of Mr. Trump.” She noted that she had been present for Trump’s phone calls with Pecker, including ones about some of the Enquirer’s coverage, including hit pieces on one of Trump’s GOP opponents in the 2016 race, Dr. Ben Carson.

But she also said that she didn’t recall being in attendance at meetings in Trump Tower between Pecker and her former boss.

“Were you ever in and out of [Trump’s] office when Mr. Pecker was meeting with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower?” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked.

“I don’t have a recollection of that, but it’s certainly possible,” she said.

Still, Hicks’s testimony about her boss’s behavior runs counter to a portrait of Trump that his legal defense has tried to paint—claiming that Trump was thoroughly distanced from any knowledge of hush-money payments to his alleged mistress, porn actress Stormy Daniels, or any attempt to bury her story.

Notably, Hicks specified that although she is testifying in the trial under subpoena, she is paying for her own legal representation and hasn’t spoken to Trump in nearly two years.

Trump is accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans has come under fire as the target of a Louisiana sex-trafficking probe, according to an 11-page search warrant made public Tuesday. But a recent ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court might stand in the way of any victims seeking to hold the church accountable.

The document requested that the archdiocese hand over “ANY and ALL documents that pertain in any way to the sexual abuse of a minor by clergy members employed or otherwise associated with the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” specifying that those records violate the state’s child sex-trafficking laws.

The warrant also demands any and all communications between Gregory Aymond, the archbishop of New Orleans, and “ANY department within the Vatican pertaining to child sexual abuse.”

Aymand reportedly led a cover-up of the sprawling child sex-trafficking scheme that targeted children for several decades, going so far as to ignore pleas by his advisers to punish and publicly reveal the identities of priests and deacons in at least six separate cases that the church had determined were credible accusations of sexual misconduct with minors, according to a bombshell 48-page memorandum leaked in 2023 to The Guardian.

The warrant, which was filed last week, included disturbing details of the pedophilic scheme—including that, in some instances, “‘gifts’ were given to abuse victims by the accused [molesters] with instructions to pass on or give the gift to certain priests at the next school or church,” noting that the “‘gift’ was a form of signaling to another priest that the person was a target for sexual abuse.” Abuse was also a common occurrence at the New Orleans Seminary, where children were encouraged to skinny dip in front of other members of the Archdiocese before being assaulted, according to the warrant.

But a judgment by the Bayou State’s highest court has effectively stripped sexual assault survivors of an avenue of justice against the church. The judges ruled 3–4 in March that it’s the due process rights of priests and their enablers to not be held accountable in instances of sexual assault.

The case, Bienvenu v. Diocese of Lafayette, was brought by Douglas Bienvenu and several other plaintiffs who claimed they were sexually molested by a Roman Catholic priest during the 1970s, when they were between the ages of 8 and 14.

In its majority opinion, issued on March 22, the court argued that while the facts of the case were largely undisputed, the priest—and the religious institution he was a part of—was actually protected under the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause. Therefore, a sexual assault “look-back” window established by the Louisiana legislature in 2021 was actually, according to the court, unconstitutional.

Less than two months after criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu and calling for his ouster, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reportedly now plans to invite the Israeli prime minister to address Congress.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson drafted an invitation to Netanyahu last month and told The Hill Thursday that it was to be extended on behalf of both houses of Congress. But, Johnson said, Schumer has done nothing since then.

“I sent a letter draft, because it’s a bicameral invitation letter, it’s been sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk. As far as I know he has not co-signed it yet,” Johnson said.

But now, Schumer’s office says, the Senate majority leader has changed his mind.

“He intends to join the invitation; the timing is being worked out,” a spokesperson for Schumer said.

In March, Schumer gave a speech in Congress saying that Netanyahu had “lost his way,” arguing that the Israeli prime minister had allowed his “political survival to take precedence over the best interests” of Israel and criticizing his alliance with the country’s far right.

“Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, preserve Israel’s credibility on the world stage, and work towards a two-state solution,” Schumer said.

Just a week later, though, when Johnson announced he intended to invite Netanyahu to address Congress, Schumer appeared to hedge his bets.

“Israel has no stronger ally than the United States and our relationship transcends any one president or any one Prime Minister. I will always welcome the opportunity for the Prime Minister of Israel to speak to Congress in a bipartisan way,” Schumer said in a statement.

So, what caused Schumer to welcome Netanyahu? It may be that misguided framing and discourse regarding college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, where Netanyahu and the Israeli military have been accused of war crimes, have changed his outlook. Some Democrats have made outrageous criticisms and claims about the student movement, even going as far to compare them to neo-Nazis. Meanwhile, many Republicans have engaged in grandstanding over the protests to boost their pro-Israel credibility, despite being mocked by the students.

Schumer also was attacked after his March speech by the pro-Israel lobbying organization AIPAC, which still wields considerable influence in Congress. It’s quite telling that Schumer’s speech didn’t mention Congress’s long history of hindering peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians, perhaps demonstrating that nothing was really going to change. It looks like anything that would actually bring a cease-fire to Israel’s war in Gaza and make definite steps toward a Palestinian state, such as ending weapons sales to Israel, isn’t coming from Congress anytime soon.