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Hope Hicks Acknowledges She Sometimes Tells White Lies for Trump Image Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, testified behind closed doors on Tuesday to the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America
WASHINGTON — Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, told House investigators on Tuesday that her work for President Trump, who has a reputation for exaggerations and outright falsehoods, had occasionally required her to tell white lies.
But after extended consultation with her lawyers, she insisted that she had not lied about matters material to the investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible links to Trump associates, according to three people familiar with her testimony.
The exchange came during more than eight hours of private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Ms. Hicks declined to answer similar questions about other figures from the Trump campaign or the White House.
She also pointedly and repeatedly declined to answer questions about the presidential transition or her time in the White House, lawmakers who sat in on the testimony said, telling investigators that she had been asked by the White House to discuss only her time on the campaign. They added that she did not formally invoke executive privilege.
A lawyer for Ms. Hicks declined to comment.
The committee, which has been investigating Russia’s meddling for nearly a year, has increasingly found itself butting up against the White House over similar claims by witnesses.
When Stephen K. Bannon, who served as Mr. Trump’s chief strategist until he was forced out in August, similarly refused to testify about his work for the presidential transition team and the White House, Republicans on the committee quickly subpoenaed him. Mr. Bannon continued to refuse to talk about those subjects, and lawmakers are weighing whether to initiate contempt proceedings.
There was no indication that Republicans would subpoena Ms. Hicks.
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans were applying a double standard to Mr. Bannon — who has been exiled from Mr. Trump’s circles after disparaging the Trump children in a book by the author Michael Wolff — and all other witnesses. He urged Republicans who control the committee to subpoena Ms. Hicks.
“That’s an overly broad claim of privilege that I don’t think any court of law would sustain. And I think the White House knows that,” Mr. Schiff said. “This is not executive privilege, it is executive stonewalling.”
Members of the committee said that under pressure from lawmakers, Ms. Hicks and her lawyers had consulted the White House during the interview and determined that she could answer limited questions about her work on the transition.
Still, Mr. Schiff said that important questions had been left unaddressed.
A fixture of Mr. Trump’s inner circle throughout the campaign and in the White House, Ms. Hicks is viewed as a valuable witness by investigators. She was involved in the firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director in May and the drafting of a statement in July in response to questions about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Russians and top Trump campaign officials. The statement and its drafting have attracted the interest of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Ms. Hicks refused to answer questions about both, lawmakers said.
Investigators working for Mr. Mueller interviewed Ms. Hicks over two days in December. She has also testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The interview was the committee’s first in more than a month. Democrats and Republicans have spent the better part of that time bitterly wrangling over a Republican memo accusing the F.B.I. and the Justice Department of abusing their powers to spy on a former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page.
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A member of the House intelligence committee said “We got Bannoned” on Tuesday, after a closed-door interview with Hope Hicks, a key aide to Donald Trump, as part of the panel’s Russia investigation.
Bloomberg reported that Denny Heck, a Washington Democrat, invoked Bannon, Trump’s former campaign manager and White House strategist, who refused to answer some questions in front of the panel.
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The House is now considering whether to hold Bannon in contempt.
A Republican, Chris Stewart of Utah, said Hicks would not answer questions about events and conversations since Trump took office.
Hicks, Trump’s communications director, arrived on Capitol Hill after 10am through a rear entrance to the committee’s interview space. She did not answer shouted questions from reporters.
The panel is investigating contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia, as is special counsel Robert Mueller. Hicks has been interviewed by Mueller.
As one of Trump’s closest aides, she is a key eyewitness to his actions over the past several years. She was his spokeswoman during the 2016 campaign.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) WITCH HUNT!
Trump has denied any collusion with Russians interfering in the US election. In the hours before Hicks’ arrival the president tweeted several times, quoting cable news commentators who said they had not seen evidence of collusion.
One tweet encouraged investigations of his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.
A last tweet simply said “WITCH HUNT!”
In the White House press briefing on Tuesday afternoon, press secretary Sarah Sanders denied any collusion between Trump aides and Russia and said of Hicks’ appearance: “We are not going to comment on any individual’s specific interactions with the committee.”
Hope Hicks draws line on Russia testimony The Trump confidant's appearance may escalate tensions between the House Intelligence Committee and the West Wing over interview ground rules.
White House communications director Hope Hicks declined to answer many questions during an appearance on Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee, escalating a standoff over witness ground rules between the West Wing and House members investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Hicks said she was acting on instructions from the White House when she refused to answer questions covering her time on the post-election transition and in the West Wing, committee members said. It is unclear whether President Donald Trump officially authorized her to invoke executive privilege on his behalf, a step some lawmakers believe he must take to make such a claim valid.
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By late afternoon, Hicks — one of Trump’s closest confidants — had spent more than nine hours in a secure committee meeting room. She spent much of that time answering questions about her time on the Trump campaign, when investigators believe Russians made multiple efforts to infiltrate Trump's circle. Toward the end of the day, Hicks abandoned her refusal to discuss the presidential transition — but continued to decline queries about her White House tenure.
Hicks changed her tack after members noted she had discussed the transition during a prior interview with the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.).
The issue of interview ground rules has also bedeviled the panel’s recent meetings with former Trump political strategist Steve Bannon, whom even Republican committee members have discussed holding in contempt for his refusal to answer many of their questions — apparently at the direction of White House lawyers. The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, complained after a Feb. 15 meeting with Bannon that the former Trump aide would respond only to queries that had been “literally scripted for him by the White House."
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White House officials rejected that charge, saying they are properly shielding privileged conversations between the president and his senior aides. But lawmakers of both parties on the panel have expressed growing frustration about that position.
The House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Bannon on the spot during an appearance in January. But by early afternoon no such action had been taken to compel Hick’s fuller testimony. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) made clear the intelligence panel views Hicks differently than Bannon because she still serves in the administration.
Rooney declined to say whether Hicks coordinated her responses with the White House during the interview. He said he was satisfied with her responses and that no subpoena threat had been issued to extract more testimony.
Hicks' appearance marks the latest drama for a panel riven by partisan anger since the release of a classified Republican memo accusing the FBI of inappropriately spying on a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016. Trump declassified the GOP document on Feb. 2 but blocked the immediate release of a Democratic rebuttal, which emerged on Saturday. The furor has threatened to derail the committee’s probe into Russian election meddling, which has proven far more acrimonious than a parallel one being conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
King said Republicans spent time during the hearing correcting “unfair questions” posed by Democrats. He and Rooney declined to elaborate on what questions might have been at issue.
Though Bannon has drawn more public attention, Hicks has spent far more time at Trump’s side: Bannon joined Trump’s campaign only in the summer of 2016 and left the White House roughly a year later. Hicks has also been present for key moments of interest to Russia investigators, including an Air Force One flight last July on which Trump and his advisers and family members crafted a misleading statement about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Both Republicans and Democrats on the panel have previously erupted at Bannon for citing executive privilege as a shield against questions about his time on the Trump transition team, given that Trump had not yet taken office and assumed the presidential duties that privilege is widely considered to cover.
It’s also unclear whether the House will follow through with threats to hold Bannon in contempt. Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who’s leading the intelligence committee’s Russia probe, has said the question would require guidance from House leaders — but Conaway said he has not yet spoken to House Speaker Paul Ryan about the prospect of a contempt citation. Ryan’s office has so far declined to weigh in on the prospect.
The House’s treatment of Bannon may not be a guide for what’s to come for Hicks. Bannon had a falling out with Trump in January over comments he gave to author Michael Wolff for the book “Fire and Fury,” in which he criticized members of the Trump family and suggested their interactions with Russians may have been nefarious. Hicks remains a trusted insider and power center of Trump’s team.
Hicks has already met with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Justice Department’s Russia investigation.
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks met with lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee for nine hours Tuesday for a closed-door interview as part of the committee’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Hicks did not respond to questions from reporters as she left the Capitol, but one of the Republican members of the committee, Rep. Tom Rooney of Florida, said she had declined to answer questions about her time in the Trump administration.
Others who have worked in the White House, including former strategist Steve Bannon, also have declined to talk about that time in interviews with the committee.
Rooney did say that Hicks was willing to discuss her time on the Trump campaign and the transition, after being told she had answered similar questions by the Senate Intelligence Committee several months ago. Hicks was Trump’s spokeswoman during the 2016 campaign, and is considered a key eyewitness to Trump’s actions over the period prior to his inauguration.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the committee’s ranking member, told reporters that Hicks had been “instructed by her employer at the White House not to answer any questions about events and meetings after the transition.”
Schiff described it as a “breathtakingly broad claim of privilege that I don’t think any court would sustain.”
“My understanding was that Hope Hicks would be willing to answer everything,” another Republican committee member, Rep. Peter King of New York, told Fox News’ “The Story.” “But the White House asked her only to answers up to the end of the campaign, because that was really in the scope of the hearing.”
Republicans and Democrats were divided on whether the committee would subpoena Hicks for more answers. The panel subpoenaed Bannon last month after he refused to answer questions, but he has yet to cooperate. The House now is considering whether to hold Bannon in contempt.
“She’s answered questions on the transition. Mr. Bannon was claiming a privilege based on the transition [where] we were asking what the privilege was and we weren’t comfortable that there was such a privilege,” Rooney said. “Since she has decided to answer questions based on that transition, then she cannot be compared to Mr. Bannon.”
Schiff disagreed, saying that the committee was using “one rule for Bannon and one for everyone else.”
Hicks also has been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to published reports, along with other White House officials. Mueller is investigating matters related to the Russian meddling and potential obstruction of an ongoing federal inquiry.
While the investigation is focused on Russian interference during the campaign, House investigators also had questions about her time in the White House, including her role in drafting a statement about a 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russians. That statement has been of particular interest to Mueller.
The White House has said the president was involved in drafting the statement after news of the meeting broke last summer. The statement said the meeting primarily concerned a Russian adoption program, though emails released later showed that Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., enthusiastically agreed to the sit-down with a Russian lawyer and others after he was promised dirt on Trump’s presidential rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hicks was with the president on Air Force One, while they were writing the initial statement.
“All of our questions about what went into that statement went unanswered,” Schiff said.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
