Hope Hicks testifies in Trump trial : NPR

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

We’re beginning the present with a take a look at the third week of former President Donald Trump’s felony hush cash trial. It ended on Friday with a high-profile witness, Hope Hicks. For years, Hicks was a trusted member of Trump’s interior circle. She instructed jurors about what occurred behind the scenes in Trump’s 2016 presidential marketing campaign, when the unearthed “Entry Hollywood” tape appeared to upend the race a couple of month earlier than Election Day. That is the tape, many will keep in mind, the place Trump was recorded bragging about grabbing girls’s genitals.

Different key witnesses this week included the lawyer who negotiated the alleged hush cash funds for Stormy Daniels and one other lady that Trump allegedly had an affair with. And I spoke about this week’s testimony with NPR political reporter Ximena Bustillo, in addition to Tristan Snell, the previous New York prosecutor who led the state’s case in opposition to Trump College. I began by asking Snell why that second of panic within the Trump marketing campaign when the “Entry Hollywood” tape surfaced was so vital to the felony case.

TRISTAN SNELL: The felony case actually hinges on what precisely was the motive or the inducement or the aim behind the actions that have been taken. The paperwork are going to be fairly clear that, after all, funds have been made and that then Cohen was reimbursed for them by way of falsified invoices. The query is why. Falsifying paperwork is a misdemeanor. Falsifying paperwork to cowl up one other crime as a felony. So it actually comes all the way down to why did they do it? The context is king right here, and that is why a lot hinges on the timing and the general context of what was occurring in October of 2016, simply after the “Entry Hollywood” tape and on the eve of the election. Displaying that panic is absolutely, actually key to the prosecution having the ability to say, this was for politics. This was for the marketing campaign. This was to not conceal it from Melania.

DETROW: What did you assume the protection was attempting to do after they have been cross-examining Hope Hicks on Friday?

SNELL: They’re actually attempting to point out distance between the story that we all know we’ll get from Cohen and what different tales they’ll attempt to create or manufacture right here concerning what Trump was doing. Specifically, they are going to attempt to present – the protection goes to attempt to present – that Cohen someway acted alone, that he had gone rogue, that he had decided himself that this was a good suggestion for Trump’s marketing campaign, that Trump did not direct him to interact within the cost to Stormy Daniels and that he had principally performed this on his – of his personal volition and independently of anyone else.

I do not actually assume that they succeeded in that. The truth that Hicks now could be underneath oath on the report, saying that she did not actually consider Trump telling her that’s, I feel, very compelling, that Hicks’ opinion of Cohen is that he wouldn’t have performed something like that simply because he felt prefer it was a good suggestion. He would have wished to take credit score for it and so forth and so forth. I feel that Hicks’ testimony goes to be a buttress supporting Cohen’s upcoming testimony.

DETROW: In order that was probably the most high-profile witness this week coming on the finish of the week. Ximena, who have been the opposite key witnesses that we heard from?

XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Nicely, the opposite principal key witness was Keith Davidson, and he was the previous lawyer for Stormy Daniels, the grownup movie star, and Karen McDougal, the previous Playboy mannequin. Each acquired funds from Cohen and the Nationwide Enquirer journal, respectively. And Davidson was the lawyer that negotiated these funds and these contracts so as to promote the rights to their tales in order that they would not get out.

On the opposite half of this coin was the catch-and-kill scheme that was created between the Nationwide Enquirer, Cohen and Trump to search out these tales and purchase these rights in order that they would not get out. And so we heard from Davidson about how these funds have been negotiated. We checked out among the contracts, after which we additionally checked out quite a lot of textual content messages between him, management on the Nationwide Enquirer – and he talked about conversations that he’d even had with Cohen associated to those funds.

DETROW: Are you able to inform us in regards to the what have we performed second that got here up within the textual content messages from election evening 2016, when Trump had been elected president?

BUSTILLO: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Davidson says that he did not do these offers to assist Trump win, however he knew that their actions would profit the marketing campaign. And on election evening 2016, he texted Dylan Howard, the editor of the Nationwide Enquirer that they have been working with, to shut this cost deal. And he texted him, what have we performed? And that was sort of a little bit of an alluding to what have we performed to assist Trump win? That was a degree on election evening when it appeared like Trump was successful sufficient delegates to, you understand, safe the official function. And Dylan Howard simply texted again, oh, my God.

And so there are a pair texts like that that do come out. There was one other one the place Davidson jokes about ready for his ambassadorship on the White Home, you understand, and sort of issues like that that point out that they knew that this could profit the marketing campaign in a technique or one other.

DETROW: Tristan, what, to you, have been crucial angles that the prosecution centered on with Davidson? And identical query with the cross-examination from the protection.

SNELL: I feel that the important thing takeaways from Davidson’s testimony have been simply it was further foundation-laying for what’s to return with Cohen. It is, once more, corroborating Cohen’s account of all of this. Davidson was in direct contact with Cohen all through this complete time interval. That is actually the important thing takeaway from all of this. We have now not seen quite a lot of fireworks from witnesses like Davidson. I feel that the much less flashy these witnesses are, the extra plausible they are going to be. I do not actually assume that the cross-examination of Davidson actually accounted for all that a lot.

They’re attempting to make a few of these individuals out to be self-interested, however I do not actually assume that is going to resonate a lot with the jury. I feel the jury’s widespread sense will kick in to say, look, this isn’t precisely a savory enterprise that we’re discovering out about right here. No one seems terrific in any of those conditions. This was all a somewhat shady set of transactions, and…

DETROW: Yeah.

SNELL: …Solely by moving into this type of set of witnesses and transactions will we truly get to the reality.

DETROW: Tristan Snell, Ximena Bustillo, because of each of you. Might the fourth be with you each.

BUSTILLO: Thanks.

SNELL: Thanks.

DETROW: You may hear the total dialog and get the most recent information from the continuing New York case by downloading NPR’s Trump’s Trials podcast.

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