BREAKING! HOPE DOES NOT SPRING ETERNALššš! Hope Hicks,is resigning her job as White House Communications Director!
Hope Hicks, long considered one of President Donald Trumpās most trusted advisers, is resigning her job as White House communications director, several outlets confirmed Wednesday.
āHope is outstanding and has done great work for the last three years,ā Trump said in a statement to The New York Times. āShe is as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person. I will miss having her by my side but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, I totally understood. I am sure we will work together again in the future.ā
Hicks is expected to finish out her job in the next few weeks.
Her resignation comes one day after her eight-hour testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russiaās meddling in the 2016 presidential election. According to reports, Hicks admitted during her testimony that Trump sometimes required her to tell āwhite lies.ā
Her departure also comes weeks after White House staff secretary Rob Porter, with whom Hicks has been romantically linked, left his post over allegations that heād physically abused his two ex-wives.
On Feb. 8, White House spokesman Raj Shah said Hicks ādid recuse herself from some mattersā concerning the administrationās response to Porterās exit, but did not deny reports that Hicks was involved in drafting the White Houseās initial statement on the scandal.
Some speculated that Hicksā reported relationship with Porter was a factor in the White Houseās initial decision to defend him.
Hicks was also recently caught up in special counsel Robert Muellerās investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia. In late January, The New York Times reported that Mark Corallo, who served as a spokesman on Trumpās legal team before resigning in July, was planning to tell Mueller about a previously undisclosed phone call between him, Trump and Hicks.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Corallo claims Hicks said on the call that Donald Trump Jr.ās now widely reported emails about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer āwill never get outā ā suggesting to Corallo that she was contemplating obstructing justice.
Hicksā team has denied she ever made that comment.
The enigmatic 29-year-old has never given an onscreen interview and is rarely quoted. However, she has been regarded as one of Trumpās top confidantes and is āsometimes treated like an extended family member,ā according to a Politico profile on her published last summer.
In 2015, Trump tapped Hicks, who had been working on Ivanka Trumpās clothing line since 2014 and had no political experience, to work as the press secretary on his presidential campaign. After Trumpās inauguration, Hicks was named his director of strategic communications. She took on the role as interim communications director last July when Anthony Scaramucci was abruptly ousted, and secured the job permanently in September.
It was also recently reported that deputy communications director Josh Raffel, who has acted mainly as spokesman for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushnerās White House initiatives, is likewise stepping down. Raffelās departure, a White House official told CNN this week, is expected within the next two months.
And they keep Falling!
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