Former Trump Aide Breaks Down In Emotional Testimony During Hush Money Testimony

Hope Hicks, who served as a counselor to the president for former President Donald Trump, had an emotional breakdown when testifying in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush cash case in Manhattan.

Hicks labored for the previous president starting a mere two years after she left faculty and had an extended skilled relationship with him, experiences mentioned. She was beforehand known as to testify earlier than the House January 6 Committee, and now the case pertaining to alleged funds made to grownup film actress Stormy Daniels.

Hicks broke down in courtroom, prompting Judge Juan Merchan to name for a brief recess on Friday.

After she testified for the prosecution, the protection legal professional, Emil Bove, cross-examined her, and she or he shortly “broke down,” MSNBC reported.

“I want to talk to you about your time at the Trump Organization,” the legal professional mentioned to Hicks earlier than she began to get emotional.

“Sorry about that,” she mentioned after she got here again to the witness stand.

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“No, it’s okay,” the legal professional for the previous president mentioned.

“Absolutely…I don’t think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed about anything on the campaign.  He wanted them to be proud of him,” Hicks testified.

Her testimony was an “epic miscalculation that backfired spectacularly” on the prosecution, Fox News authorized analyst Gregg Jarrett said in a chunk for Fox News.

“The account by Hicks demolishes District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s primary claim against Trump that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence with the intent to benefit his campaign and, thereby, influence the election by ‘unlawful means.’  To the contrary, it nicely corroborates the findings of a federal investigation that no crimes were committed, or campaign finance laws broken because there was another purpose for the non-disclosure agreement that Daniels signed,” he mentioned.

“Like the prosecution witnesses before her, Hicks disparaged Bragg’s planned star witness, Michael Cohen, Trump’s one-time personal lawyer.  ‘He used to like to call himself Mr. Fix-It, but it was only because he first broke it.’ Ouch!  But that denigrating remark is tame compared to the other derisive comments that have been leveled thus far at the insufferable Cohen, who is a convicted liar who went to prison,” he mentioned.

“Hicks confirmed that Trump was aware that Cohen paid off Daniels to end what can fairly be described as aggressive blackmail demands. When the election drew near, Daniels ratcheted up her greedy scheme to profit from Trump by threatening to go public about a supposed affair, which he denied.  Not incidentally, she renounced the purported tryst. Then, in a head-spinning maneuver, she recanted her repudiation,” the analyst mentioned.

It was one thing that her former legal professional, Michael Avenatti, mentioned on X, previously Twitter, from his jail cell.

“Keith Davidson is lying,” he mentioned on Thursday. “After I confronted her w/ her own text msgs, Daniels admitted to me in early 2019 that she & Davidson had extorted Trump in Oct. 2016 – it was a shakedown.”

“This was one of the many reasons I fired her as a client in Feb. 2019,” he mentioned.

Davidson was the legal professional for Daniels and former Playboy mannequin Karen McDougal, who secured confidentially agreements and payoffs for each of them.

Jarrett puzzled the place the crime was within the case, as confidentiality agreements aren’t in opposition to the regulation.

“The payments made were not illegal.  Non-disclosure contracts in exchange for silence are not unlawful. Killing negative stories violates no statutes.  More to the point, it is not a crime for Trump to know about a non-crime. That would be a senseless syllogism,” the authorized analyst mentioned.

“So, where exactly is the crime? To quote a memorable line from ‘Shakespeare In Love,’ ‘I don’t know…it’s a mystery!’” he mentioned.

“There is, however, no mystery behind Alvin Bragg’s politically driven prosecution of Trump.  Out of thin air, the DA conjured up expired misdemeanors, dumped them into a Cuisinart, tossed in a garbage state statute that doesn’t apply to a federal election, hit the “puree” button, after which poured out an absurd concoction of fake felonies,” he mentioned.

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