Hope Hicks Congress Transcript Out – She Agrees Russians Helped Trump 2016 Campaign
Former White House communications director Hope Hicks refused to answer about 155 questions during her testimony Wednesday in front of the House Judiciary Committee, according to a transcript of her appearance released today.
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Hicks appeared with a body of lawyers from the Trump administration and was stopped from answering questions about the Trump presidential campaign, the firing of former FBI director James Comey, and the resignation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn, among other issues.
The initial transcript of the closed-door interview with Hope Hicks can be found here.
The House Committee is investigating whether President Trump or members of his administration attempted to obstruct special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
The White House had opposed Hicks’s testimony and directed her not to turn over to Congress any documents related to her administration duties. The White House has claimed Hicks was immune from being asked about her administration tasks.
“The White House asserted so-called absolute immunity, which is ridiculous and which we’ll destroy in court,” said Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the head of the Committee.
Hicks did assert that the campaign used materials from Wikileaks that was publicly available, and said the Trump campaign felt “relief” when material damaging to Hillary Clinton was released.
Hicks also said that the Secret Service was made aware of a blackmail threat against President Trump by the notorious hacker Guccifer 2.0. She also said she was “very surprised” to learn about 100 contacts between the Trump campaign and various Russians, and agreed that the Russians had attacked the 2016 election and aided Trump while hurting Clinton.
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