No matter how many times Trump declares himself “vindicated” in the investigation of the alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russian government operatives, there are still many questions to be answered.
Hope Hicks was scheduled to appear in front of the House Intelligence Committee in January 2018 but that interview was cancelled while attorneys discussed “the full scope of her testimony,” according to CBS News.
‘The committee will want to question Hicks about any and all contact Trump campaign members might have had with Russian intermediaries. However, one of the most charged issues likely to be addressed is Hicks’ knowledge of the White House’s initial statement, drafted aboard Air Force One, in response to press reports of a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and Trump campaign officials. Committee members will presumably want to probe what role the president himself had in the process – which is also an area said to be of special interest to special counsel Robert Mueller.’
Hope Hicks is scheduled to be interviewed privately by House Intelligence Committee, officials say https://t.co/wjyyDE3RXQ pic.twitter.com/cNtZIJcLAH
— Bloomberg (@business) February 26, 2018
That meeting aboard Air Force One took place on the return flight from Germany, where the president had attended the G20 summit. News that The New York Times was about to break the story of the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner and Russian government operatives reached the president, who oversaw a meeting drafting a statement from Trump, Jr. to give to The New York Times in response.
That statement included the version of the story that said the Trump Tower meeting was about adoption laws, but that version fell apart the moment the full email chain between Trump, Jr. and the Russian coordinator of the meeting was released publicly, which explicitly stated that the meeting was about compromising information that the Russians had on Hillary Clinton. Overseeing the meeting to put the false statement together, according to Slate, “instantaneously put Trump in legal jeopardy for obstruction of justice.”
Information about the president’s involvement in the crafting of the statement is rumored to have led to the resignation of Trump spokesman Mark Corallo, who the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House says was immediately concerned that the actions of the president and the select staff members who helped craft that statement were breaking the law by obstructing justice. Corallo, according to The New York Times, planned to give Special Counsel Robert Mueller evidence that Hicks may have intentionally broken the law on behalf of the president that day.
‘A former spokesman for President Trump’s legal team, Mark Corallo, planned to tell Mueller’s team that Hicks said on a conference call that emails written by the President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., about the Trump Tower meeting, “will never get out.”‘
Hicks’ lawyer has denied that any documentation, including any emails, were removed or destroyed by his client.
Hicks is set to sit for her interview with the House Intelligence Committee in a closed-door session on Tuesday, February 27.
Featured image screengrab via YouTube
