House Judiciary chairman wants answers from Hicks
WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, DN.Y., is demanding answers from Hope Hicks on what he termed “inconsistent” elements of Hicks’ involvement in pre2016election efforts to conceal affairs between then GOPcandidate Donald Trump and two women.
“Anything other than complete candor can have serious consequences,” Nadler said in a fivepage letter sent to Hicks via her Washington lawyer, Robert Trout. He gave Hicks a deadline of Aug. 15 to provide answers.
Nadler focused on Hicks’ appearance before the committee last month, in which she repeatedly denied having any knowledge of Trump lawyerfixer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to win her silence on her 2006 affair with Trump.
But in his letter, Nadler pointed to an FBI searchwarrant affidavit unsealed Thursday that showed Hicks intimately involved in numerous phonecall discussions of the Stormy Daniels payoff, including her placing a call to Cohen on Oct. 8, 2016 and patching in Trump.
Up to now, Greenwichnative Hicks has avoided legal jeopardy in the various investigations emanating from the nowclosed probe of special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump 2016 campaign Russia connections. Hicks cooperated with Mueller and agreed to testify voluntarily before the House Judiciary Committee.
The investigation of Cohen in New York was based on a referral from Mueller. Cohen is now serving three years in prison in a plea deal with the U.S. attorney over fraudulent business practices as well as the payoffs, which were violations of campaign finance law.
The U.S. attorney’s office in New York has stated that the investigation is over. That came as a positive sign for Hicks, although the affidavit noted a discrepancy between Hicks’ involvement in the October 2016 phone calls and her statement to the FBI interviewer that she did not know of payoffs until early November 2016, just before Trump’s Election Day victory.
But Hicks now faces possible legal consequences from Nadler and the Democratcontrolled Judiciary Committee if she is not able to reconcile the conflicting accounts.
Trout, Hicks’ lawyer, denied there is any conflict.
“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,” Trout said in an emailed statement. “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.”
Once an intimate of Trump, Cohen has now turned against the president. In pleading guilty, he stated that he acted under the direction of Trump himself.
The transcript of Hicks’ appearance before the committee, released after her testimony, shows Hicks stating she only learned about Daniels through fielding a call from a reporter in November 2016. Hicks said she was told Daniels was among those “shopping stories around” of trysts with Trump.
After the initial call, Hicks spoke again to Cohen on Oct. 8. Cohen in turn spoke to a lawyer for Daniels and executives for the company that publishes the Trumpfriendly National Enquirer. By the end of the day, the $130,000 payoff was in motion, the affidavit showed.
The FBI did not listen in on phone calls but made inferences through tracking the calls’ time, length and participants, as well as text messages.
Hicks again spoke to Cohen later in October when the transaction with Daniels had been finalized. Cohen also arranged for the silence of another woman, Karen McDougal, who also claimed an affair with Trump. The National Enquirer paid McDougal for her story with the intent of burying it _ a practice known as “catch and kill.”
In her Judiciary testimony, Hicks said she had no contact with the lawyer who represented McDougal and Daniels, Keith Davidson. But the affidavit suggested Hicks was involved in planning strategy with Davidson to minimize a Wall Street Journal story on Nov. 4, 2016 on McDougal.
At one point, the affidavit said, Cohen was talking to Davidson and Hicks at the same time on two different cell phones.
In his letter to Hicks, Nadler concluded: “Given the apparent inconsistencies between your testimony and this evidence, I would like to give you an opportunity to clarify your testimony on a voluntary basis, prior to our considering compulsory process” — a subpoena.