Panel Chairman Jerrold Nadler issued a statement on Thursday in which he said that Hope Hicks told the House Judiciary Committee that President Donald Trump was serious in saying that there is nothing wrong in accepting derogatory information about political opponents from a foreign government.
“Ms. Hicks made clear that she understood the president to be serious when he said that he would accept foreign interference in our election. She also made clear that even she knew that such foreign assistance should be rejected and reported to the FBI,’’ said Nadler.
Carrie Cordero, a conservative attorney who is also a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think thank, said: “Receiving foreign assistance has been recognized throughout the entire history of the country as something that is counter to and undermines the Constitution. That is an invitation to Russian intelligence and any other intelligence service that’s out there that wants to try to find a way to influence our democratic processes.”
Hicks, who was Trump’s campaign press secretary and his White House communications director, spent eight hours in a closed-door committee hearing on Wednesday. But she refused to answer questions about her 14-month White House tenure after administration attorneys said she was immune from testifying on the topic, Reuters reports.
During the Thursday’s hearing, Representative Ted Deutch (D-Fl.) said: “Ms. Hicks could not even answer whether she told the truth to the Mueller team because the president’s lawyers objected to the question.”
Democrat Representatives want Hicks to answer everything about the five episodes in the Mueller report that they believe contain evidence of obstruction of justice by Trump.
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