White House Communications Director Hope Hicks is scheduled to meet with the House Intelligence Committee today in a closed-door session. The meeting is part of the Committee’s ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Hicks is a long-time assistant and confidant to President Trump and the Trump family.
Her role in the campaign has come under scrutiny in recent months both because of her role presidential gatekeeper and because of her actions during an incident in which the White House formulated a response to the news that Donald Trump Jr., the President’s eldest son, had met secretly with Russians on the promise of receiving politically damaging information on Donald Trump’s general election opponent Hillary Clinton.
The White House attested at the time that the meeting was about a popular Russian adoption program, and not about the election.
The president and his team were approached by The New York Times with questions about the meeting. A spokesman for President Trump’s legal team at the time, Mark Corallo, disagreed with the Russian-adoption-program response, arguing that it was only a matter of time before emails between Trump Jr., and the meetings’ attendees showing the true nature of the meeting, became public.
Hicks, reportedly told Corallo, that those emails would “never get out.” That conversation, according to Corallo, took place aboard Air Force One as the White House team was on its way back from Germany after a G-20 summit last July. It took place also, reportedly, in front of the president, who was directly involved in formulating the response, and with no lawyer present, so that it was not protected by attorney-client privilege.
Corallo resigned his position shortly after the incident, feeling those events likely constituted obstruction of justice.
A lawyer for Hicks vigorously denies Corallo’s account. “She never said that,” attorney Robert P. Trout said earlier this month. “And the idea that Hope Hicks ever suggested that emails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false.”
Hicks has actually already been questioned by Mueller’s team, as well as the Senate Intelligence Committee in their respective investigations, according to multiple sources. It is unclear to what extent the White House has, or will, subject any testimony Hicks gives to executive privilege. The issue has caused conflict between the House Intelligence Committee and another former Trump aide, Steve Bannon.