There aren’t a lot of available details, but Hope Hicks — a longtime associate of former President Donald Trump, who has put in time on Trump’s campaign, at his business, and in the White House — was reported to be testifying to the House committee investigating January 6 on Tuesday.
Hicks formally departed a presidential advisory role in the Trump administration after the Capitol riot but before Donald actually left office, as reported by NBC. Her roles on Trump’s presidential team included work on communications, potentially allowing her at least some insight into the Trump team’s approach to issues related to the 2020 elections and the potential for — and presence of — real-world, Trump-inspired violence. NBC notes that Hicks also sat for questioning before Congress in 2019, at which time she wasn’t forthcoming about her work for Trump. Concerns of executive privilege have come up over and over again amid investigative efforts oriented around Trump, although Pat Cipollone — who was the White House counsel at the time of the Capitol riot — eventually provided relatively broad (albeit still limited) answers to the committee despite any such concerns, so they’re legally surmountable.
In some of his private testimony, footage of which was spotlighted by the riot panel in public proceedings, Cipollone seemingly implicitly admitted Trump didn’t want members of the mob that descended on the Capitol to leave. “Who on the staff did not want people to leave the Capitol?” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) asked Cipollone during his deposition. “I can’t think of anybody on that day who didn’t want people to get out of the Capitol particularly once the violence started,” Cipollone told investigators. “What about the president?” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked. “Well, she said the staff, so I answered,” Cipollone said — indicating he wasn’t including Trump in his description of a general consensus people needed to leave the Capitol. “I can’t reveal communications, but obviously I think –,” Cipollone began in further comments, trailing off after having conferred with a lawyer.
The fate of a recently issued subpoena from the panel for Trump isn’t yet clear. He doesn’t seem to have made a conclusive public statement about his intentions, although the ex-president has been predictably antagonistic.
