Hope Hicks Reluctantly Confronts the Man She ‘Totally Understands’ in Court

Key Facts

Ms. Hicks’s role in the Trump Show dates to 2015, when, as a 26-year-old with no political experience, she was plucked from Ivanka Trump’s clothing line to serve as press secretary to what then seemed a quixotic bid for the presidency.
Unlike other aides, she never had a falling out with Mr. Trump (or wrote a tell-all memoir), serving as the White House communications director and returning for the final year of his administration.
But their closeness took a hit when it emerged in 2022 that she had voiced anger in a text message to a colleague over the fallout on Mr. Trump’s staff from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Ms. Hicks, who was reared in the buttoned-up community of Greenwich, Conn., the daughter and granddaughter of public relations men, has long prized discretion, even amid a White House that could be shockingly indiscreet.