Hope Hicks, the former top Trump advisor who served as White House Counselor to the President and was once called “Trump’s right-hand woman,” will reportedly testify before the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. It is a major “get” for the Committee, which as of June had already interviewed over 1000 people in its investigation.
Hicks, a former fashion model who first entered the Trump circle by working with Ivanka Trump, moved on to working for the Trump Organization, and then the Trump 2016 campaign, and finally, the Trump White House. She served various high-level, high-visibility roles, including White House director of strategic communications, a role created for her; White House communications director; and finally as an aide to Jared Kushner, and Counselor to the President. That final role was questioned by some who saw it as a taxpayer-funded campaign job.
“Hope Hicks, a former top Trump White House aide, is scheduled to sit for a transcribed interview with the House Jan. 6 committee today, per person familiar,” reports New York Times congressional correspondent Luke Broadwater. NBC News’ Ali Vitali confirms the report.
“Hicks has been there through it all,” CNN reported in 2018, one month before she resigned, noting it took her just “seven years to go from college graduate to White House communications director.”
“The 29-year-old was one of Trump’s first hires as he assembled a lean team of aides who would launch his improbable presidential campaign,” CNN added. “From then, until his election, she was a constant presence by his side – traveling to nearly every rally, hovering within earshot during interviews and always prepared to type out a bombastic tweet as dictated by her boss.”
Hicks returned to the Trump administration in March of 2020, in a tremendous display of loyalty, but according to The New York Times she refused to support his election denialism in the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
“Hope Hicks, long one of his closest advisers, told him it was time to move on,” the Times reported in June.
“’Well, Hope doesn’t believe in me,’ Mr. Trump responded bitterly. ‘No, I don’t,’ she replied. ‘Nobody’s convinced me otherwise.’ She disappeared in the final weeks of the administration,” The Times claimed.
Last week the Committee formally issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, including a lengthy letter supporting its decision to call him, stating, “you personally orchestrated and oversaw a multi-part effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and to obstruct the peaceful transition of power.”