Hope Hicks angers Democrats by declining to answer questions

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By Billy House / Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director, angered Democrats Wednesday by declining to answer some questions during a closed-door session with members and staff of the House Judiciary Committee investigating President Donald Trump.

The White House had already warned the committee’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, that the Justice Department considers Hicks “absolutely immune” from answering questions tied to her time as a senior adviser to Trump at the White House.

“Because of this constitutional immunity, and in order to protect the prerogatives of the Office of the President, the president has directed Ms. Hicks not to answer questions before the committee relating to her time as a senior adviser to the president,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote to Nadler on Tuesday.

In the same letter, Cipollone said other executive privilege assertions may be raised involving Hicks’ time with Trump during the presidential transition period after the 2016 election — but before he was sworn in. He alerted Nadler that a representative from his office would attend the Hicks questioning as a monitor if that is needed. He didn’t address her time in the Trump campaign.

Hicks, who was subpoenaed to testify, was part of Trump’s inner circle as one of his longest-serving and most trusted advisers. She left the White House last year and is now chief communications officer for Fox Corp.

Trump tweeted as the questioning went on for hours, “So sad that the Democrats are putting wonderful Hope Hicks through hell, for 3 years now, after total exoneration by Robert Mueller & the Mueller Report.”

A Nadler committee aide had said Tuesday that members and staff on the panel expected to question Hicks about her knowledge of at least five instances of alleged obstruction of justice by Trump, citing details in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Within the first hour of Hicks’s questioning, Judiciary Committee Democrats going in and out of the session shared complaints about her refusal under White House direction to answer questions about episodes during her time in the administration.

“It’s ridiculous,” Rep. Karen Bass of California told reporters, calling it “just another example of White House stonewalling.”

Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the panel’s top Republican, said Democrats seem to be gearing up “a summer of reruns,” rehashing and “re-litigating” matters already explored in greater depth by Mueller.

Republican committee member John Ratcliffe of Texas said “I don’t know what a bunch of House members are going to find out that a team of 60 spending $40 million couldn’t find out, or ask Hope Hicks.”

One subject Democrats wanted Hicks to talk about is a June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower in New York, where the Mueller report discusses how the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials met with Russians who promised to offer negative information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

When news of emails about the meeting surfaced about a year later, Trump is described as dictating to Hicks a false press statement that the meeting was about changing regulations on Americans adopting Russian children.

Other episodes Hicks was to be asked about include the firing of FBI Director James Comey; Trump’s efforts to get then-White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller in 2017; and Trump’s anger at then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the Russia investigation.

The aide said Hicks also would be questioned about her knowledge of alleged hush-money payments before the election to women who said they had extramarital affairs with Trump.

Hicks has already been interviewed privately by both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. She acknowledged to the House panel at one point she had told what amounted to white lies for Trump, but insisted they were not on substantive matters.

The Judiciary Committee aide said the panel’s legal staff would respond to any objections raised during the closed-door questions by White House lawyers on a case-by-case basis.

Some of the information obtained during Hicks’s interview could be discussed in a scheduled public Judiciary hearing Thursday. Also, a transcript of the interview will eventually be publicly released, the committee has said.