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8 months ago
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Hope Hicks, a former top aide to Donald Trump, is expected to testify at the former president's New York trial over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Hicks testified before the grand jury in March 2023 and will take the stand again, MSNBC reported on Monday.
She was a top campaign aide to Trump in the 2016 contest when the alleged payment was made in exchange for Daniels silence about her and Trump's alleged affair.
Trump, 77, has denied a 34-count indictment related to him falsifying business records over a $130,000 payment to the former porn star.
Donald Trump with Hope Hicks as she was leaving her job as White House communications director in March 2023
The trial was meant to start on March 25, but has already been pushed back to at least April 15th after 200,000 pages of evidence were turned over by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Trump's lawyers accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which brought the charges, of trying to bury documents that could help them challenge Michael Cohen's credibility.
The delay was put in place by the judge to give the Trump team time to examine the material.
Prosecutors claimTrump directed his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says they had a decade earlier, and then falsely recorded his reimbursement to Cohen as legal expenses.
They argue Cohen also coordinated with the National Enquirer’s publisher to give the former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000, to thwart her accounts of sexual encounters with Trump in a practice known as 'catch-and-kill.'
Trump’s namesake company then repaid Cohen $420,000 in a handful of installments, prosecutors said.
Trump denies the encounter with McDougal and with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
The former president has called the trial a 'witch hunt' and a 'hoax.'
Daniels is expected to be a key witness in the hearing as is Cohen. David Pecker, the former CEO and publisher of the National Enquirer, is also expected to take the stand.
Stormy Daniels is expected to be a key witness in the hush-money trial
Hope Hicks, seen above with Donald Trump in October 2020, also testified before the grand jury in the case
The April 15th date indicates there will be ruling before the November 2024 presidential election.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said it was unfair for Trump, who held the office from 2017 to 2021, to stand trial while he runs for president.
In the hush money case, prosecutors say the Daniels payoff was part of a broader "catch-and-kill" scheme Cohen and Trump hatched to boost his candidacy by buying the silence of people with damaging information.
Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump denies an encounter.
Trump's lawyers say the payment was meant to spare himself and his family embarrassment, not to benefit his 2016 campaign.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of violating campaign finance laws through the payment.
Trump has denied having an affair with pronstar Stormy Daniels
Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer, is also expected to testify at the trial
The Stormy Daniels case is one of many Trump faces as he seeks a second term in the White House.
He faces three other criminal cases, which focus on his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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