The Independent reports that Hope Hicks is being accused of lying to Special Counsel Robert Mueller during the investigation into the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. His comments were made during a recent ABC News meeting with Mark Corallo, a former spokesperson for Donald Trump’s legal team.
Corallo claims that the former White House communications director lied about conversations that took place with the president on Air Force One following the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Corallo said that Hicks told him she “handled” the creation of a statement made in response to press reports about the meeting, which originally became public via media reporting.
As per ABC News , Hicks reportedly admitted to Corallo that she and Trump’s team crafted the statement after The New York Times began following the story.
“I just I listened to her yell and then I said, ‘Well you know you’ve probably made yourself a witness in a federal criminal investigation. Way to go, young lady.’”
“I just pointed out that the statement that they put out on Air Force One was inaccurate,” he added.
Corallo said that he also told Hicks that her actions would make Trump’s team seem “like they were trying to hide something.”
As of now, it is unclear just how much Hicks affected Mueller’s 2016 report. Lawmakers are still arguing over if and when to release the final conclusions that Mueller made before they were summarized by Trump’s appointed attorney general, William Barr.
Ex-Trump legal spox dishes on Hope Hicks and the infamous AF1 statement https://t.co/NXc4bXBDNr pic.twitter.com/2umQ9cG4sB
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) March 27, 2019
Earlier this week, house speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed Democrats to ignore Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings.
“We cannot make a judgment on the basis of an interpretation by a man who was hired for his job because he believes the president is above the law and he wrote a 19-page memo to demonstrate that.”
In addition, the House Judiciary Committee recently voted unanimously in favor of a resolution to release the Justice Department’s FBI files relating to obstruction of justice. The vote comes in the wake of renewed interest in impeaching Trump.
As The Inquisitr previously reported, Mueller’s former assistant, Michael Zeldin, claims that Mueller was unable to come to a decision on whether President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice during the special counsel investigation because of “defective” regulations around Mueller’s position in the Department of Justice. Specifically, he claims that Mueller was held back by the attorney general and the Department of Justice due to modern special counsel regulations.