Hope Hicks didn’t so much walk to the witness stand as slide.
With accentuated curls over her shoulders and her cheekbones dramatically highlighted with blusher, she looked every bit the communications professional and confidant she had once been to Donald Trump.
But the mask slipped under the steady gaze of her former boss when prosecutor Matthew Colangelo introduced himself.
She smiled fragilely and asked if she was close enough to the microphone. “I’m really nervous,” she admitted.
Trump turned his head to watch the first of the prosecution’s key witnesses, someone central to his 2016 campaign, begin testifying.
Donald Trump watched intently as his nervous former press secretary Hope Hicks gave testimony in court Friday. She avoided looking at him the entire time she was in the stands
Trump and Hicks in happier times, here outside the Oval Office as they head to Cleveland, Ohio on March 29, 2018
If he was afraid of her testimony, he showed no sign of it and simply stared intently at the woman who worked her way up through his company, to his campaign and then to the White House.
He leaned back in his leather chair, flanked by his lawyers, as he listened to Hicks establish her credentials.
There were no poker faces in the public gallery. There was a collective gasp when the prosecutor announced Hicks as the next witness.
And the importance of her evidence was only underscored by the fact that it was Colangelo, who resigned his senior position at the Justice Department and joined the Manhattan district attorney, who asked the questions.
The weight of the moment seemed to be unconscious to Hicks, despite having spent much of her time with Trump in the media spotlight.
She smiled waterily again as she adjusted to the sound of her amplified voice. “It’ll take some time to get used to it,” she added.
It was a reminder that she had little career before being pulled into Trump’s orbit as a 26-year-old and is still only 35.
In that time, she had become one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, elevated to White House communications director.
The result was a conflicted witness who was still deeply attached to the defendant and who delivered her evidence with her eyes on the lawyers, unable to look at Trump.
Trump responded little to most of her testimonies. He exchanged words with his attorney Todd Blanche and scribbled on a notebook. You could also see him sucking on throat treats
Hicks in the White House State Dining Room in 2018 with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders
She spoke warmly about him, his family and her time at his side. She praised his media savvy, people skills and ability to multitask, before the questions turned to the more thorny issues of Playboy models, infidelity and hush money payments.
“He’s always doing a lot of things at once,” she said.
As she fidgeted and gave a nervous sip, Trump showed no sign of warmth. He sat with his eyes half closed and seemed unimpressed.
If anyone knows where the bodies are buried, it’s Hicks. As his gatekeeper, she had a ringside seat to scandal after scandal.
On the stand, she came across as loyal and spoke fondly of the former president’s family and her time at his side.
They are no longer close.
She admitted they had not spoken in two years, the result of a rift when some of her messages were released amid an investigation into his efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.
Six days after the January 6 riot, she had left the White House, in what she said was a long-planned move; but her messages suggested she was furious with her boss.
Press aide Margo Martin (far right) and legal advisor Boris Epshteyn (center) accompanied Trump to court on Friday. Campaign consultant Jason Miller is being embezzled by court officials
The trial is being held in Manhattan Criminal Court and is expected to last until June
At times, however, Trump was more animated.
He whispered to his lawyer Todd Blanche, scribbled on a notepad and stuffed a sweet throat into his mouth, pretending for all the world that he was stuck in a boring business meeting.
He displayed an air of indifference when the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape emerged, in which he made lewd comments.
Hicks described how the usual suspects of Speaker Paul Ryan and 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney had expressed outrage — people, she said, who always felt the need to “balance out.”
Trump grinned at the mention of his Republican enemies and bobbed his head to one side and then the other.
Despite her obvious nerves, Hicks gave her testimony in clear, concise answers. She described the campaign’s harm reduction efforts amid a slew of allegations of unflattering sexual behavior with a remarkable degree of recall.
For six years, Hicks was never far from Trump, both during the campaign and in the White House
She collapsed at the end of her testimony and the judge called for a short recess
It was an insider account of events that could help convict the former president. Prosecutors will seize what she said about fixer Michael Cohen, and how he was unlikely to act alone when he paid hush money.
And they will also use her words to show that Trump intended to silence women like Stormy Daniels because they could hurt his election chances instead of protecting his family.
“I think Mr. Trump felt that it was better to deal with it now, and that it would have been bad if that story had come out before the election,” she said.
Ultimately, it all became too much for a tearful Hicks. She looked exhausted and drained.
As defense cross-examination began, she asked for a moment to compose herself, turning away from the court and letting her hair fall in front of her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said through sobs as the judge called for a break.
When the day was over, she walked quickly out of the court, her head turned away from the man she had served for six years.