Hicks was questioned regarding Trump’s son’s meeting with Russian lawyer, allegedly promising ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton
White House communications director Hope Hicks, one of American President Donald Trump’s most trusted and longest-serving aides, abruptly announced her resignation Wednesday.
Trump, on the other hand, wished Hicks well in a statement, “I will miss having her by my side but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, I totally understood. I am sure we will work together again in the future.”
“As a CEO, or as a President or anyone at the top, it is lonely, and when you go in there you have the team, and you have your team,” Rob Astorino, a longtime friend of the President’s, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday. “Your team are the people that know you best and you really, really trust.”
Speaking to reporters earlier, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Hicks was not resigning because of her testimony Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee during which she said she had occasionally told ‘white lies’ on Trump’s behalf, according to a source familiar with the interview.
“When specifically asked whether or not she was instructed to lie by the president, or the candidate, with regard to Russia, the investigation or our investigation, the answer to that question was no,” Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., told The Associated Press. “And that’s our jurisdiction. Not whether or not he asked her to cancel a meeting for him, or something like that.”
Hicks was questioned extensively about the controversial Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer in June of 2016, telling congressional investigators that she was not aware of the meeting contemporaneously, and first learned of it in July 2017, when The New York Times first reported on it, according to three sources with knowledge of her interview.
Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, stepped down last summer, and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon was fired. Four people, including Hicks and former press secretary Sean Spicer, who also resigned, have held the communications director mantle.
