NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — Hope Hicks, former White House official and Donald Trump adviser, took the stand Friday at the former president's hush money trial.

Hicks recounted how Trump’s 2016 campaign became embroiled in a firestorm over a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women without their permission.

Hicks was subpoenaed by prosecutors, who are trying to show the uproar over a leaked “Access Hollywood” tape hastened Trump's then-lawyer to pay an actor to bury a story that could imperil his presidential bid.

Hicks described being stunned and huddling with other advisers after learning about the tape's existence from a Washington Post reporter.

“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development … This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”

Four days before the 2016 election, Hicks received a request for comment from a Wall Street Journal reporter for a story about American Media Inc. buying the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that she had an affair with Trump years earlier. Trump denies the allegations.

Hicks recalled reaching out to Jared Kushner in hopes he could use his connections to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Journal’s parent company, to help delay the story. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told her he likely would not be able to reach Murdoch in time, Hicks testified.

Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms. She  complimented Trump multiple times in the first few minutes of testimony, describing him as a “very good multitasker, a very hard worker.”

Trump's defense has worked to poke holes in the credibility of prosecution witnesses and to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family, not his campaign, by keeping the women quiet. 

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