Former top White House communications aide Hope Hicks started crying on the witness stand Friday as an attorney for Donald Trump began cross-examining her testimony in the ex-president’s criminal hush money trial.
Hicks and the jury briefly left the courtroom while she composed herself.
The emotional outburst came at the start of the defense attorneys’ time to question Hicks, who spoke just feet away from her former boss in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Prosecutors had asked Hicks about the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that threatened Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign just weeks before Election Day.
“Everyone was just absorbing the shock of it,” Hicks testified.
Hicks, a top press aide for the campaign at the time, said she was “very concerned” when she received an email from The Washington Post on Oct. 7, 2016, seeking comment on the tape in which Trump is heard bragging about sexual misconduct.
Hicks was concerned “about the contents …