The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Trump ‘tried to hide reports of model affair from wife’, says aide
US CORRESPONDENT
DONALD TRUMP was so “concerned” about his wife seeing stories of his alleged affair with a former Playboy model he tried to hide the news from her, according to his former aide.
Yesterday, Hope Hicks became the first person from Mr Trump’s inner circle to testify in the 11-day-old hushmoney trial.
She was glued to his side during his 2016 campaign and followed him to the White House to become the director of communications.
“I’m really nervous,” she said, as her former boss, sitting only feet away, stared at her.
During her testimony, Ms Hicks gave a fascinating insight into how Mr Trump responded in the wake of a string of sleaze scandals. When a story about a $150,000 “hush money” payment made to Karen McDougal by the
to cover up an alleged affair with Mr Trump was published in the
Ms Hicks said the former president was worried about how his wife would react.
“He was concerned about how it would be viewed by his wife, and he wanted me to make sure that the newspapers weren’t delivered to his residence that morning,” she said.
Ms Hicks later said Mr
Trump “really values Mrs Trump’s opinion”, adding: “She doesn’t weigh in all the time, but when she does it’s really meaningful to him and, you know, he really really respects what she has to say.”
He also didn’t want “anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed”, she said. Separately, text messages read out in court showed how Ms Hicks and Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former “fixer”, sent a string of frantic texts after the story about Ms McDougal broke. “Pray Michael, pray!!!”
Ms Hicks wrote to Cohen, in a flurry of texts. Cohen suggested that Mr Trump put out a statement claiming the had “turned into a smut paper”.
Avoiding looking at her former employer, Ms Hicks also detailed how Mr Trump had been “upset” after watching a leaked video of him describing grabbing women “by the p----”.
The communications consultant, 35, described how chaos unfolded in Trump Tower after she was contacted by a reporter about a leaked Access Hollywood recording they were going to publish. It captured a now-infamous conversation about women with the television host Billy Bush in 2005 that was caught on a hot mic.
In it, Mr Trump said: “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p----. You can do anything.”
Ms Hicks said she was “shocked” and went to discuss the issue with Mr Trump’s top team, who had been with him in the conference room practising for the second presidential debate.
The former model told the jury she read Mr Trump the transcript of the conversation and he replied by saying the comments “didn’t sound like something he would say” before asking to see the recording.
Asked by prosecution lawyer Matthew Colangelo if Mr Trump was “upset” when he saw the tape, she said: “Yes, yeah he was.”
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels, who was threatening to go public with her story of their 2006 sexual encounter.
He has denied ever being sexually involved with either Ms McDougal or Ms Daniels. The trial continues.