Who is Hope Hicks, the longtime Trump advisor who’s seen it all?

Hope Hicks, the woman who once stood at the heart of Donald Trump’s political operations, took the witness stand in her former boss’s hush money trial in New York on Friday.

Once a key member of Trump’s inner circle, the two have not spoken since 2022. But according to insiders, Ms Hicks remains fond of the ex-president and wants nothing but the best for him — even as she appears under subpoena to give evidence in his so-called hush money trial.

Trump has spent the majority of the past three weeks listening to evidence presented at Manhattan Criminal Court where he is accused of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels after she alleged in October 2016 that they had a sexual encounter a decade earlier. It was a revelation that threatened to sink his bid for the presidency eight years ago.

Trump denies the affair and the 34 felony charges against him.

He has decried the trial as a “scam” cooked up by his political enemies to discredit him and derail his latest campaign for the White House.

So far, jurors in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom have heard from colourful witnesses summoned by the prosecution – including tabloid publisher David Pecker and Ms Daniels’ former attorney Keith Davidson – and soon expect to hear from Mr Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen and perhaps Ms Daniels herself.

But Ms Hicks’s name has been invoked many times throughout the evidence so far.

Ex-National Enquirer editor David Pecker told jurors that Ms Hicks had been “in and out” of the pivotal August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower at which he, Mr Trump and Cohen had discussed The National Enquirer serving as the campaign’s “eyes and ears”, helping to catch and kill stories that could damage the