Hope Hicks confirmed to the House Judiciary Committee that Donald Trump welcomed Russia’s attack on the 2016 election.
The House Judiciary Committee has released the transcript of the Hicks interview.
Here are the highlights of the Russia section as provided to PoliticusUSA by the House Judiciary Committee:
– Ms. Hicks was unapologetic about the Trump Campaign’s use of hacked materials released by Wikileaks, defending the campaign as using “publicly available information†(p74).
– Ms. Hicks acknowledged that the Trump Campaign felt “relief†at the release of hacked information damaging to the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. (p104).
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
– Ms. Hicks confirmed that Jared Kushner forwarded to the Secret Service a blackmail threat against President Trump purportedly made by Guccifer 2.0 (p90), but that the campaign made no effort to contact the Secret Service about an email from Wikileaks to Don Trump Jr (p91-92).
– Ms. Hicks said that she was “very surprised†to learn that there were over 100 contacts between the Trump Campaign and individuals associated with the Russian government (p216).
– Ms. Hicks stated that she agreed with the assessment of the intelligence community that the Russians had attacked the 2016 election by aiding the candidacy of President Trump and hurting that of Hillary Clinton (p54-55).
– Ms. Hicks stated that she had learned from the 2016 presidential election, and that she would not today accept “foreign oppo information from a foreign government†(p165). She stated that she would report such an offer to the FBI if she found it to be credible (p165).
Read the full Hope Hicks interview transcript:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.politicususa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/HJU170550-Hicks-interview.pdf” title=”HJU170550 Hicks interview”]
Trump campaign was happy and relieved by the Russian election attack
Hope Hicks confirmed that Trump refusal to blame the Russians for the election attack is a total lie. The Trump campaign knew the Russians attacked the election, and they were happy about it. Hicks was blocked from talking about her time in the White House, but what she did say about the campaign was damning, and it confirms Hillary Clinton’s belief that without the Russian attack she would have won the election.
Hicks did float several Trump lies about foreign election help. Accepting election help from a foreign country is not opposition research. It is against the law. Also, it is not up to the campaign to decide if the information is credible. Any contact from a foreign government must be turned over to the FBI.
Trump welcomed the Russian attack, and his only hope of winning in 2020 might be more attacks against his country by hostile foreign governments.
Hope Hicks may not have said much, but what she did say was damning to Donald Trump.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
Follow Jason Easley on Facebook
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
