Hope Hicks ‘set to testify’ in Trump’s Stormy Daniels hush money trial: One of former president’s closest White House aides could take stand in blockbuster court case
- Trump dismissed a 34-count indictment in connection with falsifying company records about the $130,000 payment to Daniels
- The trial was postponed until at least April 15
- Hicks was a top aide to Trump during the 2016 presidential election
Hope Hicks, Donald Trump’s former top aide, is expected to testify at the former president’s trial in New York over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Hicks testified before the grand jury in March 2023 and will take the stand again, MSNBC reported Monday.
She was one of Trump’s top campaign aides during the 2016 election when the alleged payment was made.
Trump, 77, has denied a 34-count indictment related to falsifying company records about a $130,000 payment to Daniels over their alleged affair.
Donald Trump with Hope Hicks as she left her job as White House communications director in March 2023
The trial was scheduled to begin on March 25 but has already been postponed until at least April 15 after 200,000 pages of evidence were turned over by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Trump’s lawyers accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which filed the charges, of trying to bury documents that could help them question Michael Cohen’s credibility.
Prosecutors say Trump ordered his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter he said they had a decade earlier, and then his incorrectly recorded reimbursement to Cohen as legal costs. .
Trump denies meeting with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Daniels is expected to be a key witness at the hearing, as is Cohen.
The date of April 15 indicates that a ruling will be made before the November 2024 presidential election.
Trump attorney Todd Blanche said it was unfair for Trump, who held office from 2017 to 2021, to be on trial while running for president.
In the hush money case, prosecutors say Daniels’ payout was part of a broader catch-and-kill scheme that Cohen and Trump devised to boost his candidacy by buying the silence of people with damaging information.
Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump denies a meeting.
Trump’s lawyers say the payment was intended to embarrass himself and his family, not to benefit his 2016 campaign.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of violating campaign finance laws through the payment.
Trump has denied having an affair with star Stormy Daniels
The Stormy Daniels case is one of many faces for Trump as he seeks a second term in the White House.
He faces three other criminal charges, which focus on his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.