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President Trump and Hope Hicks, then director of communications, at the White House in March 2018 (Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images)
Hope Hicks, one of President Trump's key collaborators during his 2016 campaign and his first year at the White House, has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next Wednesday, according to people close to the folder.
Hicks will be Trump's first former assistant to appear before the committee to determine whether Trump has tried to prevent an investigation into Russia's interferences in the 2016 elections. But Hicks may not answer many questions from panel, citing the president's assertion of executive privilege over events at the White House.
Earlier this month, the White House asked Hicks not to cooperate with a subpoena to appear before Congress to obtain documents relating to his services to the White House.
Robert Trout, Hicks's lawyer, declined to comment.
The testimony will be in camera, the individuals said, but a transcript will be made public. A member of the White House Council Office will attend the testimony as part of the agreement between Mr. Hicks and the committee, according to a person familiar with the planning who spoke on behalf of anonymity to freely describe the arrangements.
[[[[White House orders Hope Hicks, former McGahn advisor not to comply with Congressional subpoenas]
The testimony marks a significant advance for the committee. He struggled to find witnesses and evidence during a fight with the White House and took the unusual step earlier this week to call John W. Dean III, Richard White House lawyer Nixon, to talk about obstruction. The committee also wishes to hear Donald McGahn, the former White House council at the center of the Mueller report on the interference of Russia, and Robert S. Mueller III, the former special council, between other. But Trump said he did not want his advisers to cooperate, calling the investigation "a repression of Mueller's probe."
Hicks was one of five assistants officially assigned to appear by the committee – which deepens the issue of obstruction, among others. Mueller's report indicated that there was not enough evidence to demonstrate a plot between Russia and Trump's associates and it was decided not to conclude whether the president had obstructed, on the basis of the longstanding policy of the Department of Justice.
Hicks started working for Trump before announcing his candidacy and was a trustworthy confidant for three years, shaping his image, managing his mood and advising him on almost every topic, from the bottom to the ordinary. She was very popular in Trump's West Wing and had tremendous power because of her close family relationships, although she acknowledged to her colleagues that she was not a policy guru. She often spent hours at the Oval Office every day and the President affectionately called her "Hopey".
Before leaving the West Wing in February 2018, she attended many of the most controversial episodes of the campaign and the White House. She has had occasional contacts with the President and some of his closest advisers.
Hicks told other people in the White House that she hated Washington and that she was looking forward to another chapter of her life. She now works at Fox Corporation in Los Angeles as Public Relations Manager.
Hicks was interviewed by Mueller and the House Intelligence Committee, and his departure from the White House came 48 hours after she told the committee that she had told "white lies" about Trump.
In a letter to the committee last week concerning documents, Trout made a distinction between the registrations requested by the committee relating to the campaign, Hicks acting as a senior advisor and the documents relating to his service to the White House. He agreed to submit documents regarding his campaign activities. But he said the White House's approval was necessary for documents relating to his stay at the White House.
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