importance of hope hicks and what her departure means at the very time jared and ivanka are under fire, losing their top security clearance and not having access to the critical information jared needs. it really does seem like some of the last key players, josh raffel and others who already said they are leaving just this week as well. a big change for donald trump. hope hicks was one of these trusted confidants who president trump almost thought of as a surrogate daughter, who was expected to be there turning out the lights with him at the end of four or eight years or whenever his presidency came to an end. it is hard to overstate first how stunning her departure is, and second, sort of how impactful and what it will mean for the white house. first of all, this is a president who likes to be surrounded by people with whom he s comfortable and familiar and hope hicks was first among them. with her exiting, there are
to the new york times should be. tonight the new york times is reporting, quote, mr. mueller has also been examining a false statement that the president dictated on air force one in july in response to an article in the times about a meeting the trump campaign officials had with russians in 2016. the times goes on to quote portions of michael wolff s book and version of that meeting. here s how michael wolff describes the air force one meeting led by the president on what to say to the new york times. included in the discussion on the plane were the president, hope hicks, jared kushner and ivanka trump and spokesperson josh raffel. ivanka would leave the meeting, take a bill and go to sleep. jared, in the telling of his team, might have been there but he was not taking a pencil to anything. the meeting would shortly