Hope Hicks just sold Donald Trump out
Yesterday, the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tried to create the false appearance that almost no one in Donald Trump’s orbit was cooperating with the committee’s recent document requests, presumably in the hope of giving Trump’s associates the confidence to refuse to cooperate. But last night it was revealed that this was false, and that plenty of people were in fact cooperating. Now we’re getting names, including a big one.
Donald Trump’s former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks is turning over Trump-related documents to the House Judiciary Committee, according to a new report this evening from CNN. Why does this matter? First, Hicks is selling Trump out by complying with the document request, as opposed to trying to stand her ground and fight what would have been an inevitable subpoena. But there’s more to it than that.
Second, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler has already publicly made clear that this initial round of document requests is only seeking the same documents that Robert Mueller other investigators have already requested. Hope Hicks decision to turn over documents to the committee tells us that Mueller has already asked her for the same documents, and that she’s already complied with that request. She wouldn’t give these documents to Congress if she refused to give them to Mueller, because Congress would just give them to Mueller anyway.
So now we know that Hope Hicks has sold out Donald Trump to the House Democrats and to Robert Mueller. She’s not the only one. Nadler confirmed earlier this week that Steve Bannon gave thousands of documents to the committee, which means he must have previously given thousands of documents to Mueller as well. It’s starting to become clear who wants to survive this legally, and who wants to go to prison with Trump.
