Politics- Top presidential aide Hope Hicks reportedly listed pros and cons of her resignation from the White House in her notebook, New York Magazine revealed.
- That detail is the latest confirmation that Hicks' personal records of her time in the White House and relationship with President Donald Trump may be of interest to the special counsel.
- During Hicks' testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last month, she reportedly refused to answer questions about her time in the White House, provoking some lawmakers to press investigators to subpoena her.
Hope Hicks, the outgoing White House communications director and President Donald Trump's top confidante, wrote lists of pros and cons concerning her imminent resignation and sketched out the potential media responses in a notebook, a New York Magazine profile revealed Sunday.
The Daily Mail first reported last month that Hicks, who announced her resignation from the White House in late February, has kept a "detailed diary" of her work in the White House and relationship with the president.
The existence of the journal drew attention from lawyers and ethics experts. They say Hicks' intimate account of internal White House events is considered an official government document and will likely be subpoenaed by the special counsel as part of the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible colllusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Norm Eisen, the chair of the ethics watchdog group CREW, tweeted last month that Hicks' diary would be subject to preservation under the Presidential Records Act, will be subpoenaed, and "raises issues about her handling of classified" information.
Telling 'white lies' for the president
Hicks privately testified before the House Intelligence Committee in late February, the day before she announced her resignation, and was interviewed by investigators working for the special counsel Robert Mueller in December.
During her eight-hour intelligence committee interview, Hicks reportedly said she has told "white lies" for the president, an extraordinary admission that made international headlines. (She said she has not lied about issues related to the Russia investigation.)
Hicks also repeatedly refused to answer questions posed by Intelligence Committee members about the presidential transition or her work in the White House, but eventually agreed to answer limited questions about the transition.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House committee, called Hicks' refusal to discuss anything other than the presidential campaign "stonewalling," and pressed his Republican colleagues to subpoena her.
"That's an overly broad claim of privilege that I don't think any court of law would sustain. And I think the White House knows that," Schiff told The New York Times. "This is not executive privilege, it is executive stonewalling."
Most recently, Mueller subpoened former Trump aide Sam Nunberg, who initially said he would refuse to appear before a federal grand jury or turn over his communications with other Trump aides as part of the special counsel investigation, but later agreed to cooperate.