Hope Hicks didn't provide much information for Democrats in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee -- but she may have cracked the stone wall the White House has built around former staffers.
President Donald Trump's former communications director -- and perhaps his most trusted aide outside his family -- claimed blanket immunity throughout her closed-door testimony, but Hicks still gave Democrats something in their legal battle against the White House, argued Margaret Carlson for The Daily Beast.
"Perhaps surprisingly, there’s no controlling legal authority defining the breadth of what aides can testify to," Carlson wrote. "With all its limitations — in private, surrounded by lawyers, with a dry transcript to come days later — Hicks’ appearance gave Democrats, with no time to waste, a promising case to take to court to challenge the White House’s definition of immunity."
Hicks refused to answer even the most basic questions about her service in the White House, which ended early last year, and House Democrats could use that to challenge her claims to immunity.
"Even under the broadest interpretation, immunity doesn’t extend to where you sit at work," Carlson wrote. "(House Judiciary chairman Jerry) Nadler predicted after Hicks left, 'We will destroy them in court.'"
"Her stilettos clicking down the marble halls of the Rayburn Building was the sound of the stone wall cracking," she added, "from the inside out."