John David Mercer/USA Today Sports via Reuters
Donald Trump’s hush money trial enters its fourth week Monday following the Star Wars Day weekend, which was seized on by both Republicans and Democrats alike as an opportunity for some pop culture-infused PR for their respective presidential candidates. Joe Biden posed alongside actor Mark Hamill in the White House, while the North Carolina Republican Party depicted Trump as “A New Hope” in a Star Wars-themed post (which drew mockery for seeming to inadvertently cast him as a villain).
But the “Hope” that will be on the mind of jurors at the beginning of the 12th day of Trump’s trial is Hope Hicks, his former senior aide who broke down into tears on the stand while testifying Friday about how the campaign responded to the explosive emergence of the Access Hollywood tape—in which Trump boasted about groping women—on the eve of the 2016 election.
Hicks said she knew the tape was “going to be a massive story” and that it would be “a damaging development.” The infamous recording had also figured earlier in the week in the testimony of lawyer Keith Davidson, who said it had had a “tremendous influence” on the interest in claims being made by his client, porn star Stormy Daniels, of an alleged affair with Trump.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
thedailybeast.com