Hope Hicks

Hope Hicks Refused to Answer Questions 155 Times in Train Wreck Testimony for Democrats

But at least we know what the weather was like on her first day of work.

June 20, 2019

Hope Hicks walks down a hallway surrounded by reporters.

Former White House communications director and Trump campaign aide Hope Hicks appeared before the House on Wednesday—and, true to the White House's pattern of stonewalling Democrats, lawmakers weren't able to get much out of her. According to a transcript released Thursday of Hicks's testimony, White House lawyers blocked Hicks from answering questions 155 times during her interview, claiming that they were invoking “absolute immunity” that prevented Hicks from “stat[ing] anything about her knowledge of anything during the period of time in which she was employed in the White House.” “With all due respect, that is absolute nonsense as a matter of law,” House Judiciary chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler said about the White House's move.

The White House's immunity claims predictably prevented Hicks from answering many of lawmakers' meatier questions concerning such topics as her White House communications, Donald Trump's actions as president, and the obstruction allegations against him. But the “absolute immunity” even extended to seemingly minor issues: Hicks was not allowed to answer whether “a war [broke] out between Israel and Egypt” while she was in the White House, for instance, or where her office was located within the White House. (She was allowed to divulge that it was a “cloudy day” on her first day of work at the White House, and that she usually ate lunch at her desk.) Though Hicks was allowed to say that she and Trump had dinner together in April to “reminisce,” after Hicks had already left the White House, lawyers objected to further questioning, claiming that while they weren't claiming executive privilege now, they were leaving open the possibility that Trump could claim it in the future. “You won't allow the witness to answer because you're reserving the right to assert privilege about a conversation at some point in the future?” Rep. Ted Deutch asked. “That is correct,” Hicks responded.

Despite the White House's frequent objections, lawmakers were able to get some interesting responses out of the tight-lipped communications aide. Hicks noted that it was “odd” Trump had asked former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to ask Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and said that she “agree[s] with the assessment of our intelligence community” that Russia was behind the hacking of the Clinton campaign. Going on to discuss the WikiLeaks release of Clinton campaign dirt further, Hicks said that when the information was publicly released, her response was “not happiness, but a little bit of relief maybe that other campaigns had obstacles to face as well.” Hicks claimed it would be “wildly generous” to describe the Trump campaign's use of the Clinton materials as a “coordinated strategy,” describing it instead as an effort “to take publicly available information and use that to show a differentiation between Mr. Trump as a candidate and Mrs. Clinton as a candidate.”

Hicks was also asked about Trump's recent ABC News interview, in which he claimed he would readily accept foreign information on an opponent and probably wouldn't tell the FBI about it. The former Trump aide said that unlike the president's infamous “Russia, if you're listening” comments on the campaign trail—which she claimed were said in jest and were not serious—she didn't perceive the president to be joking when he made his most recent comments. Going against her former boss, Hicks said that she would not personally accept foreign information, “knowing how much chaos has been sowed as a result of something like the Steele dossier,” and would contact the FBI if she “felt it was legitimate enough to have our law enforcement dedicate their time to it.”

Hicks's testimony marked the latest instance of the White House's escalating attempts to stonewall House Democrats, which have so far included ignoring subpoenas, refusing to turn over documents, and using executive privilege to even shield testimony from private citizens. House Democrats have decried the administration's latest “absolute immunity” claims as being legally bogus; Nadler pointed out in a statement that “the courts have already decided that ‘absolute immunity’ is ‘entirely unsupported by existing case law’ and ‘virtually foreclosed’ by the Supreme Court.” Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu shared an excerpt of a recent House hearing on Twitter, in which law professor Saikrishna Prakash, who was called as a witness by House Republicans, admitted that he “[doesn't] believe” the Trump administration has the immunity they claim. While House leaders are still seemingly unwilling to start impeachment proceedings—even as a steady stream of House Democrats continue to come out in favor of doing so—Nadler has signaled that Democrats will at least refuse to idly accept the administration's seemingly over-broad immunity claims. “The White House asserted so-called absolute immunity, which is ridiculous and which we’ll destroy in court,” Nadler told reporters Wednesday after Hicks's hearing. “We’re going to go to court on the doctrine of absolute immunity.”

Alison Durkee