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Hope Hicks acknowledges she sometimes tells white lies for Trump
Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, told House investigators Tuesday that her work for President Donald Trump, who has a reputation for exaggerations and outright falsehoods, had occasionally required her to tell white lies.
The exchange came during more than eight hours of private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Hicks declined to answer similar questions about other figures from the Trump campaign or the White House.
She also pointedly and repeatedly declined to answer questions about the presidential transition or her time in the White House, lawmakers who sat in on the testimony said, telling investigators that she had been asked by the White House only to discuss her time on the campaign. They added that she did not formally invoke executive privilege.
A lawyer for Hicks declined to comment.
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The committee, which has been investigating Russia’s meddling for nearly a year, has increasingly found itself butting up against the White House over similar claims by witnesses.
When Stephen K. Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist until he was forced out in August, similarly refused to testify about his work for the presidential transition team and the White House, Republicans on the committee quickly subpoenaed him. Bannon continued to refuse to talk about those subjects, and lawmakers are weighing whether to initiate contempt proceedings.
There was no indication that Republicans would subpoena Hicks.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans were applying a double standard to Bannon — who has been exiled from Trump’s circles after disparaging the Trump children in a book by author Michael Wolff — and all other witnesses. He urged Republicans who control the committee to subpoena Hicks.
“That’s an overly broad claim of privilege that I don’t think any court of law would sustain. And I think the White House knows that,” Schiff said. “This is not executive privilege, it is executive stonewalling.”
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Members of the committee said that under pressure from lawmakers, Hicks and her lawyers had consulted the White House during the interview and determined that she could answer limited questions about her work on the transition. Still, Schiff said that important questions had been left unaddressed.
A fixture of Trump’s inner circle throughout the campaign and in the White House, Hicks is viewed as a valuable witness by investigators. She was involved in the firing of James B. Comey as FBI director in May and the drafting of a statement in July in response to questions about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Russians and top Trump campaign officials. The statement and its drafting has attracted the interest of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Hicks refused to answer questions about both, lawmakers said.
Investigators working for Mueller interviewed Hicks over two days in December. She has also testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The interview was the committee’s first in more than a month. Democrats and Republicans have spent the better part of that time wrangling over a Republican memo accusing the FBI and Justice Department of abusing their powers to spy on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
NICHOLAS FANDOS © 2018 The New York Times
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