{"id":208,"date":"2018-02-28T11:09:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T16:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=208"},"modified":"2018-03-01T12:07:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:07:59","slug":"hope-hicks-lobbed-barbs-at-manafort-and-admitted-white-lies-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=208","title":{"rendered":"Hope Hicks Lobbed Barbs at Manafort and Admitted White Lies, Official Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<address class=\"lede-text-only__byline\">By<\/p>\n<div class=\"author\">Billy House<\/div>\n<\/address>\n<div class=\"lede-text-only__times\"><time class=\"article-timestamp\" datetime=\"2018-02-28T14:24:57.095Z\" data-type=\"updated\" data-status=\"do-not-localize\">February 28, 2018<\/time><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" src=\"https:\/\/thenypost.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/02\/180228-hope-hicks-white-lies-feature.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=978\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hope Hicks arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.<br \/>\nGetty Images<\/p>\n<div>White House Communications Director Hope Hicks was antagonistic toward Paul Manafort, the now-indicted former campaign manager to President\u00a0<a title=\"Billionaire Profile\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/billionaires\/id\/1252249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a>, during a House Intelligence Committee interview, according to a House official familiar with her testimony.<\/div>\n<p>Hicks was said to tell the panel during a lengthy closed-door session Tuesday that if Manafort had gone through the same level of background checks as other Trump campaign aides, he never would have gotten the job of campaign chairman, said the official, who requested anonymity because the session wasn\u2019t public.<\/p>\n<p>In her work for Trump, Hicks also was said to tell the panel that she occasionally was required tell &#8220;white lies,&#8221; but later clarified that did not apply to substantive matters, the official said. The New York Times earlier reported that information about her testimony.<\/p>\n<p>Hicks declined to answer some questions during her interview with the House committee in its investigation of Russian campaign interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, lawmakers said after the session.<\/p>\n<h3>Following Bannon<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cWe got Bannoned!\u201d said panel Democrat Denny Heck of Washington, in a reference to the previous refusal of former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon to answer some questions. Republican Chris Stewart of Utah said Hicks wouldn\u2019t answer questions about events and conversations since President\u00a0<a title=\"Billionaire Profile\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/billionaires\/id\/1252249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0took office.<\/p>\n<p>Hicks also lobbed some snarky barbs toward Manafort, said the official, including telling the committee he likely wouldn\u2019t have been named to the job if he\u2019d gone through the same level of background checks before being named campaign chairman as others on the Trump team.<\/p>\n<p>Representative Peter King of New York, a House Intelligence Committee Republican, said the first 20 minutes of the panel\u2019s questioning of Hicks established what areas she wouldn\u2019t discuss.<\/p>\n<p>He said that under instructions from the White House, she declined to answer questions related to the transition period between the election and Trump\u2019s inauguration, as well as the time \u201cin the West Wing.\u201d Later in the day, Hicks did answer some questions about the transition, according to Republican Representative Tom Rooney of Florida.<\/p>\n<h3>Call for Subpoena<\/h3>\n<p>The panel\u2019s top Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, said that she began answering some transition-related questions after it became clear she had addressed those topics in an earlier interview she did privately with the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s probe. Schiff has said that the committee wanted to know about events and conversations tied to Hicks\u2019s role as part of the Trump campaign as well as her current post as a top adviser in his administration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe ought to treat this witness like Steve Bannon and she should be subpoenaed,\u201d Schiff told reporters after the Hicks interview, saying the White House has suddenly stopped being cooperative with the panel\u2019s probe. \u201cWe need to compel answers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hicks, who met with the panel voluntarily for about nine hours, didn\u2019t speak to reporters.<\/p>\n<h3>Disputed Emails<\/h3>\n<p>On Jan. 31, the New York Times reported that\u00a0a former spokesman for Trump\u2019s legal team, Mark Corallo, was prepared then to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller of his concerns over a comment Hicks made during a phone call with him and the president.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Times, Corallo said Hicks said during the call that emails written by Donald Trump Jr. about a June, 9, 2016, meeting with Russians at Trump Tower would \u201cnever get out.\u201d Corallo was concerned that Hicks might be considering obstructing justice, the Times reported, citing sources. Her lawyer, Robert Trout, denied Hicks made such a statement or suggested documents or emails would be concealed, the Times reported.<\/p>\n<p>Trout didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<h3>Trump Tower Aftermath<\/h3>\n<p>Some of the questions, Schiff said, would focus on &#8220;what role she may have played in the drafting of that initial false statement about the Trump Tower meeting&#8221; to the media last summer. Schiff said that Hicks would be asked to describe what roles the younger Trump, and even the president, had in crafting that statement.<\/p>\n<p>He was referring to reports that during an Air Force One flight from Germany, Trump dictated a statement to Hicks as a initial response for the media to revelations that his eldest son had met with the Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The statement\u2019s assertion that the meeting primarily concerned a program for adopting Russian children turned out to be false when emails revealed that Trump Jr. had agreed to the meeting after being offered dirt on his father\u2019s presidential foe, Democrat Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>Schiff said beforehand that he hoped Hicks would be more forthcoming than former Trump aides Bannon and Corey Lewandowski.<\/p>\n<p>Committee Democrats complained that Bannon gave scripted responses and refused to answer many questions, saying he\u2019d been instructed by the White House to invoke executive privilege. Schiff has called for the committee to consider contempt action against Bannon.<\/p>\n<p>Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager, told committee members in his voluntary appearance in January that he wasn\u2019t prepared to answer questions about the period after he left the campaign, though he stopped short of asserting executive privilege. He promised to return, but hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 With assistance by Terrence Dopp<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Billy House February 28, 2018 Hope Hicks arrives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Getty Images White House Communications Director Hope Hicks was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presidential-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-03-01_12-07-26.jpg?fit=901%2C596&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-3m","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":265,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=265","url_meta":{"origin":208,"position":0},"title":"Here Are the Top Officials in the Trump White House Who Have Left","author":"Donnie","date":"February 28, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"By\u00a0LARRY BUCHANAN,\u00a0ALICIA PARLAPIANO\u00a0and\u00a0KAREN YOURISH\u00a0UPDATED\u00a0FEB. 28, 2018 The\u00a0announcement\u00a0that Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, will leave the administration is the latest in a string of departures to shake up the West Wing. 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