After Hope Hicks, the White House's former communications director, refused to answer many questions during her congressional testimony this week, some House Democrats may actually be grateful.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told Politico that Hicks declining in a Wednesday hearing to answer Democrats' questions about her White House tenure "very much played into our hands."
That's because Nadler says Democrats in the coming days will file a lawsuit against former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who previously refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. As they head to court hoping to force McGahn to testify, Nadler thinks Hicks' testimony will demonstrate that the White House has gone too far in its stonewalling.
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"It's one thing to tell a judge blanket immunity is not a right thing," Nadler told Politico. "It's another thing when a judge can see what that means in actuality, and how absurd it is." In fact, Nadler told Politico this was all part of the plan. "We knew this was going to happen," he said of Hicks' testimony. "The point of it was to dramatize for the court what the implications of this are," adding that the testimony, for this reason, was actually "very useful."
During Hicks' testimony, White House lawyers objected to her answering questions about her time in the Trump administration, including one about where her office was located. A transcript of the hearing shows White House lawyers stopped her from answering questions 155 times, NBC News reports.
Now, Nadler is hoping courts will agree with his objections to the White House's claims of immunity, saying "that court case is key to everything."
