Fox News personality Judge Andrew Napolitano suggested Thursday that White House communications director Hope Hicks’s resignation was linked to statements she made to the House Intelligence Committee this week.
In an appearance on Fox News’s “Outnumbered,” Napolitano said that Hicks’s statement to the committee that she occasionally told “white lies” for the president was “inexplicable” and “infuriated” President Trump.
“That language apparently infuriated the president and it preceded her announced departure,” Napolitano said. “It’s inexplicable why she would say that, or she was talking about. And supposedly the president was furious.”
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“The White House is trying to walk this back, saying she’d been planning for a long time to leave. It’s hard to believe that the two are not related to each other,” he asserted.
Napolitano argued that Hicks’s comment, which was reportedly made as part of her lengthy testimony to the committee about her work on the Trump campaign, was leaked to the press by someone looking to hurt the longtime Trump aide.
“People leak when they want to damage or control the message. So somebody wanting to harm her, or push her along on what she says was her longstanding decision to leave at some point, leaked this out and it’s inexplicable to me why she would say that or what she was talking about,” he said.
Hicks was slammed by Democrats on the panel this week for “executive stonewalling” after she reportedly refused to answer key questions about her involvement in the crafting of the president’s statement defending his son, Donald Trump Jr., for meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower during the campaign for dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Hicks announced her resignation from the White House on Wednesday, the day after her appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. She set no departure date but is planning to exit the Trump administration in the next few weeks, according to the White House.
“There are no words to adequately express my gratitude to President Trump. I wish the president and his administration the very best as he continues to lead our country,” Hicks said Wednesday.