All the other news outlets focus on how Trump has pleaded not guilty to the 34 felony counts against him in his current criminal trial.

He stands accused of falsifying his business records in order to cover up multiple affairs, in order to better his chances in the 2016 presidential election, which he won.

But let me be the first outlet that tells you, his downfall is going to be people who he once considered friends.

And I don’t mean “friends,” like the way you can find pictures of Bill and Hillary Clinton at his wedding reception with Melania nearly two decades ago. I mean, people he let IN to his goings on.

I mean Hope Hicks.

So when we heard her testimony about the payments Trump made to his lawyer Michael Cohen, who then paid off his mistresses, I feel like she knows what she’s talking about.

Asked by the prosecution about the check WE ALL SAW from Cohen to Daniels, and framed in the way that Trump framed it — that Cohen paid that money out of the kindness of his heart, Hicks said “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person, The kind of person who seeks credit.”

That sounds like someone very familiar with both Trump and Cohen, who has already spent time in jail for his dealings with Trump, after lying to congressional committees about Trump’s dealings with Moscow.

But attorney Jim Trusty — I know, what a name for a lawyer — appeared on CNN during the trial, and indicated that Hicks’s testimony was going to be devastating for Trump:

“Well, it certainly hurts. I mean, look, there’s a couple of tactical things I would just point out to start with. First is, when you’re at the end of a week of multi-week trial and you’re a prosecutor – and I did this for years, 27 years – you like to end strong. You like to end with something where the jury goes home thinking that was pretty important stuff. So they certainly began to cross over from just kind of tawdry to President Trump’s intent, which will drive whether they can make the felony charge.

The other thing I would say on kind of a pure advocacy level. Sometimes, really, really reluctant witnesses become the most powerful ones. And you can just read it. It’s just human psychology. You see a person that is clearly uncomfortable with being there, doesn’t want to hurt anybody, doesn’t want to be a part of it, but they end up giving devastating, very entertaining, and interesting information.”

And that’s the thing. Hope Hicks looked down as she passed Trump on her way out of the courtroom, but she’s still a Trumper at heart. And by that, I mean, someone who will probably vote for him in November.

But like Washington, who could not lie about the cherry tree, Hope was bound not just by her legal obligation but her MORAL obligation, to tell the truth.

And Trump could be Hope’s cherry tree.

Trump's former attorney says Hope Hicks’ testimony ‘certainly hurts’ the fat, orange, adjudicated rapist on trial pic.twitter.com/s3uxpDupJO

— Nicole Hickman James (@nicolejames) May 4, 2024