“I think I'm the most honest human being, perhaps, that God has ever created." — Donald Trump
Or perhaps not! Longtime Donald Trump aide Hope Hicks testified Friday in the former president’s trial for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election and following release of the infamous Access Hollywood video. In that explosive recording, the Republican presidential nominee brags about how his status as a “star” enables him to grab women “by the pussy” with impunity. Now the Washington Post was emailing Hicks for a comment from the Trump camp. From the New York Times live feed:
Hicks says that when she shared the email from the Washington Post with Trump, one of his initial reactions was to say that his comments about assaulting women “didn’t sound like something he would say.”
There’s Trump, lying right to the face of a trusted and trusting subordinate! How many thousands of times has this scene played out in Trump’s life? “Me? Are you kidding? That’s not me on the recording! That doesn’t look like my signature! I never said that! I can’t believe someone would say that about me! This is a witchhunt! I’m not the liar, they’re the liars! Wait’ll you see the evidence I’m revealing Monday! I barely knew Jeffrey Epstein!”
And yet Hicks, based on her responses and demeanor on the stand, still holds some affection for someone she knows to be a lying, pussy-grabbing insurrectionist! I will never understand.
The Access Hollywood audio — which, in a rational and just world, should have destroyed Trump’s candidacy on Oct. 7, 2016, the day it came out — is relevant to this trial because it provides context for Trump’s desperation to quash rumors of his alleged extramarital affairs with Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, which were threatening to go public.
(Side note: After a single day of listening to testimony about what a shitheel his father is, Eric Trump has opted to return to his full-time pretend job of “pouring concrete.” So much for family support.)
It’s hard to tell how testimony from a witness lands with a jury, even if you are in the courtroom or watching on television. Hicks was on the stand for most of Friday’s session and her testimony may have provided help to the prosecution and defense. From Jonah Bromwich, who was one of several reporters for the New York Times in the courtroom:
Hicks could be remembered as a key witness for both sides. She testified as prosecutors expected about the effect of the “Access Hollywood” tape on the campaign, noted that Trump was micro-manager who closely supervised everything around him and acknowledged that it seemed unbelievable that Cohen would pay hush money to Stormy Daniels of his own accord.
But she also may have helped the defense lawyers, giving them grist to argue that Trump was a family man, and that his motive for suppressing damaging stories may not have been to win the election. Rather, they could argue, it may have been something more personal — to protect his relationship with his family and the wife whose opinion he took very seriously.
See? Trump was a family man who simply was trying to cover up two extramarital affairs and minimize the damage from a leaked video in which he brags about sexually assaulting women. Is that not what a family man does?
Who knows, maybe that defense will work. Hey, I was convinced O.J. was going to be convicted because of all the physical and timeline evidence against him. But a good defense team can do a lot to manufacture reasonable doubt (to the right jury) where none should exist.
However, for what it’s worth, the Times’ Maggie Haberman reported that Trump looked “very unhappy as he departs the courtroom, and his lawyer Todd Blanche is not smiling.” Maybe the defense doesn’t feel very good about how Hicks’s testimony buttressed prosecution claims that Trump micromanages money and that he and Cohen were in frequent contact about the Access Hollywood, Daniels, and McDougal situations. Cohen wasn’t freelancing.
I argued in late February that we can’t count on the courts to save us from Trump, and I still believe that. His other three criminal trials may not even start before the election! And if Trump wins, they may not start at all.
The trial going on now in Manhattan is no sure thing. A hung jury would be a victory for Trump and would energize MAGA. Merch opportunities would abound and threatening rhetoric would escalate. Which is hard to imagine because Trump already looks like his head is going to explode from rage.
Our chance to defeat Trump once and for all (and I think it would be once and for all) will come on November 5, which is 186 days from now. That alone is hard to believe because it feels like only 14 days ago that I wrote that we had 200 days until the election. I guess time flies when you’re trying to save democracy! :)
Trump’s trial resumes on Monday. Let’s not think about him until then.
(From Project Orange: Saving Democracy From the Trump-MAGA Cult)