Former top Trump aide Hope Hicks denied, through a statement from her attorney, being involved in October 2016 discussions to pay off Stormy Daniels, after documents unsealed Thursday from the Michael Cohen investigation hinted that she was.
“Reports claiming that Ms. Hicks was involved in conversations about ‘hush money’ payments on October 8, 2016, or knew that payments were being discussed, are simply wrong,” the statement from attorney Bob Trout put out on her behalf said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has requested that Hicks return to clarify an interview she gave the committee in June. She was asked at the June interview whether she was present for conversations with President Trump and Cohen about Daniels during the 2016 campaign, and repeatedly she said no.
“Ms. Hicks stands by her truthful testimony that she first became aware of this issue in early November 2016, as the result of press inquiries, and she will be responding formally to Chairman Nadler’s letter as requested,” her attorney’s statement said.
The docs unsealed Thursday included unredacted search warrant applications in which the FBI laid out Cohen’s contacts in early October 2016 as he put in motion the plan to buy Daniels’ silence about her alleged sexual relations with Trump.
Cohen spoke to Hicks on the phone twice on Oct. 8, including one call where the FBI believed then-candidate Trump was patched in, according to the warrant application. After his second call with Hicks, Cohen almost immediately got in touch with executives at American Media Inc. — the parent company of National Enquirer — who helped facilitate the pay-off deal with Daniels’ attorney, according to the warrant application.
The unsealed documents do no provide any substance of what Cohen discussed with Hicks, and say that Hicks told investigators she wasn’t aware of the Daniels allegations until November. The FBI noted that the investigator interviewing Hicks did not specifically ask her about the purportedly three-way call with Cohen and Trump.
