Hicks has been an adviser to the president since his campaign for the White House
Ms. Hicks, 29 years old, told the president in recent weeks that she wanted to leave the White House to explore outside opportunities
.. “There are no words to adequately express my gratitude to President Trump,” Ms. Hicks said in a statement. “I wish the President and his administration the very best as he continues to lead our country.”
..“I will miss having her by my side but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, I totally understood,” Mr. Trump said. “I am sure we will work together again in the future.”
.. Ms. Hicks, who for the most part kept a low profile in the White House, has faced scrutiny in recent weeks over her personal relationship with Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary who resigned amid allegations of domestic abuse by his ex-wives, which he denied. The White House faced widespread criticism for its response to the allegations and Mr. Trump privately placed some of the blame on Ms. Hicks, White House officials said—surprising people inside the West Wing because he has rarely criticized her.
.. Mr. Kelly in recent months had frequently asked others about what they thought of the performance of Ms. Hicks and other top communications officials.
.. Ms. Hicks said she had told certain “white lies” but hadn’t deceived anyone about anything related to the Russia probe.
.. As an example of the sorts of untruths she has told, she mentioned
- telling someone whom Mr. Trump didn’t wish to see that he was too busy to meet. Another example she discussed was
- spinning certain developments in the most favorable light possible.
Republicans on the panel defended her honesty and said the questioning from the Democratic side was a ploy to undercut her credibility.
.. Before joining the Trump campaign, Ms. Hicks worked at a public-relations firm in New York City, where she worked for Ivanka Trump’s brand and the Trump Organization.
Shocker: Democrats’ predictions about the GOP tax cut are coming true
its centerpiece was a gigantic corporate tax cut, lowering the statutory corporate rate from 35 percent down to 21 percent. This cut accounted for about $1 trillion of the bill’s total $1.5 trillion cost, but Republicans said it really wasn’t about helping corporations at all.
.. No, the real target was the workers: Corporations would take the money and use it to create new jobs and raise the wages of those working for them, as trickle-down economics did its magical work.
Democrats, on the other hand, said it was a scam. They charged that workers would see only a fraction of the benefits, and instead corporations would use most of their windfall for things like stock buybacks, which increase share prices and benefit the wealthy people who own the vast majority of stocks.
.. even before the tax cut, corporations were making near-record profits and sitting on mountains of cash; if they wanted to invest, create jobs and raise wages, they already had the means to do it.
.. even before the tax cut passed, corporations were saying publicly that they intended to use the money for stock buybacks.
.. It’s true that some companies did give workers one-time bonuses. But it was essentially a PR move.
.. Walmart, for instance. It made a splashy announcement that it would be giving bonuses of up to $1,000 to workers, which sounded great. But then it turned out that you’d only get that much if you’d been working there for 20 years, and the average worker would get around $190.
.. the total value of Walmart’s bonuses was $400 million, which seems like a lot until you learn that over 10 years the value of the tax cut to the corporation will be $18 billion. In other words, about 2 percent of its tax cut is going to workers
.. Republicans make absurd claims in the knowledge that even if they get debunked in the occasional “news analysis” piece, on the whole they’ll be treated with complete seriousness, no matter how ridiculous they are.
.. lies about the future — and that’s what they are when you know that what you’re saying is utterly bogus — will not be policed with nearly the same vigor as lies about the past.
.. When Republicans said that their tax cut wouldn’t increase the deficit because it would create so much economic growth that revenue would actually increase, it was treated as a questionable claim, not an assertion on par with “If I flap my arms, I can fly to the moon”
.. Sure, Democrats will squawk, and all their criticisms and predictions will turn out to be right. But it hasn’t stopped you in the past, and it won’t in the future.
What Harvey and Trump have in common
I often used to wonder if the physical dissonance between his personal grossness and his artistic sensibility — which was genuine — made him crazy
It was a common sight outside a Harvey opening party to see one of his publicists trapped in a car on the phone, spinning — spinning the dross of some new outrage into gold.
.. It was startling — and professionally mortifying — to discover how many hacks writing gossip columns or entertainment coverage were on the Miramax payroll with a “consultancy” or a “development deal” (one even at The New York Times).
.. Another of his co-opting tactics was to offer a juicy negative nugget about one of the movie stars in his films or people in his media circle (fairly often, me) in a trade to quash a dangerous piece about himself.
.. The real Harvey is fearful, paranoid, and hates being touched (at any rate, when fully dressed).
.. Winning, for him, was a blood sport. Deals never close. They are renegotiated down to the bone after the press release. A business meeting listening to him discuss Miramax deals in progress reminded me of the wire tap transcripts of John Gotti and his inner circle at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Queens. “So just close it fast, then fuck him later with the subsidiary rights.”
.. Like all bullies, he folds when he’s faced down and becomes wheedling and sycophantic. His volcanic rage erupts from raw insecurity.
.. Harvey is an intimidating and ferocious man. Crossing him, even now, is scary. But it’s a different era now. Cosby. Ailes. O‘Reilly, Weinstein. It’s over, except for one — the serial sexual harasser in the White House.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, hires his own lawyer in Russia probe
Michael Cohen, who for years has served as President Trump’s personal attorney, has hired a lawyer of his own to help him navigate the expanding Russia investigation.
.. In January, Cohen was involved in a separate incident that could potentially have drawn the attention of investigators. He has confirmed that he met with a Ukrainian lawmaker at a New York hotel at the urging of a former Trump business associate named Felix Sater. At the meeting, Sater gave Cohen a peace plan that the lawmaker had drawn up for his country that would have paved the way for the lifting of sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2014 military incursion in Ukraine.
.. The New York Times reported that Cohen said he took the plan and left it in the White House office of then national security adviser Michael Flynn.
.. Michael Caputo, a New York-based political operative and radio commentator who served as a senior communications adviser on Trump’s campaign
.. Caputo, who briefly worked for the campaign, was an ally to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He lived in Moscow for several years in the 1990s, and briefly held a contract in 2000 with the Russian conglomerate Gazprom Media to improve Russian President Vladimir Putin’s image in the United States.