HOPE HICKS BACK TO TESTIFY ON HILL…

Former White House communications director Hope Hicks has agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee – the first Trump White House official to yield to the panel’s widespread push for information.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler revealed Hicks’ decision, after talks between lawyers for the two sides that followed the committee’s issuance of a subpoena to compel her testimony.

It came on a day when Donald Trump Jr. appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee, also after a subpoena led to negotiations.

‘It is important to hear from Ms. Hicks, who was a key witness for the Special Counsel. Ms. Hicks understands that the Committee will be free to pose questions as it sees fit, including about her time on the Trump Campaign and her time in the White House,’ said Nadler, indicating that topics would not be off limits.

She is the first ex-White House aide to appear as Democrats ramp up their probes for information. The White House has instructed former White House counsel Don McGahn, a potentially key witness, not to appear before Congress.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler warned Hope Hicks he will pursue legal action against her if she refuses to comply with a subpoena

Hicks will appear before the House committee Wednesday. She did not immediately respond to a request by DailyMail.com for comment.

House Democrats have long had their sights on Hicks as someone with access to an array of information about key points in the campaign and after – and who might not otherwise be subject to privilege claims asserted by the White House.

She features prominently in the Mueller report, including during a section dealing with the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians.

The White House on Wednesday invoked executive privilege in yet another matter – refusing to comply with Oversight Committee subpoenas of Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a probe of the Census questionnaire.

Hicks is the first former White House official to agree to testify following the release of the Mueller report

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler vowed to continue his pursuit of witnesses and documents from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation

Nadler warned Hicks previously that he will pursue legal action against her if she refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena and deliver documents to his committee.

His threat came after House Democrats approved a measure this week authorizing legal action against current and former Trump administration officials who refuse to cooperate.

Nadler warned Hicks and former White House aide Annie Donaldson, both of whom have been subpoenaed, that he will use his new-found powers to take them to court.

‘If they don’t show up when they’re supposed to, they will be charged,’ he said.

‘No one is above the law and no one is exempt from congressional subpoenas,’ he added.

The White House instructed Hicks, the former strategic communications director,  not to give House Democrats any documents from her time serving as President Trump’s right-hand woman.

The order, which also covered Donaldson, the former deputy White House counsel , came on the day the House Judiciary Committee set as a deadline for complying with a May 21 subpoena.

Hicks was among those former White House officials who sat for interviews with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and his report is sprinkled with her accounts of key episodes, including the PR response to news of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians.

 The former model was a Trump Organization employee long before Trump began actively seeking the presidency, working for him at his real estate company since 2014.

The future president considered her his closest aide during the 2016 campaign. She was almost constantly at his side, placing his phone calls, passing his orders down the chain of command and even steaming his suits.

She stayed with Trump through the campaign, the transition, and followed him to the White House.

Some of her candid assessments made it into the Mueller report, as when she first got a look at the emails that set up the Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin linked lawyer.

She told Mueller’s team in March 2018 that the emails looked ‘really bad.’

‘The President seemed upset because too many people knew about the emails and he told Hicks that just one lawyer should deal with the matter. The President indicated that he did not think the emails would leak, but said they would leak if everyone had access to them,’ according to the report.

Nadler appeared to anticipate further pushback from the White House or Justice Department, which has been following through on Trump’s vow to fight ‘all the subpoenas.’

‘Should there be a privilege or other objection regarding any question, we will attempt to resolve any disagreement while reserving our right to take any and all measures in response to unfounded privilege assertions,’ Nadler said.

He added: ‘We look forward to her testimony and plan to make the transcript promptly available to the public.’

Nadler on Tuesday vowed to continue his pursuit of witnesses and documents from Mueller’s investigation.

His hand has been strengthened by the resolution Democrats’ passed Wednesday – their strongest step yet in their investigations of the Trump administration.

‘We will move forward with holding this president accountable to the American people,’ Nadler said.

First on his list is former White House counsel Don McGahn, who refused to comply with a subpoena from Nadler’s committee at the request of the Trump White House.

‘We will move as quickly as possible to go to court against Don McGahn, the president’s former counsel and any subsequent witnesses who disobey a committee subpoena,’ the Democratic lawmaker from New York said.

His threats came after House Democrats voted Tuesday to authorize lawsuits against President Donald Trump‘s administration should current and former officials refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas.

The measure will allow Democrats to pursue civil contempt suits against Attorney General William Barr and McGahn in their pursuit of documents and testimony related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

The vote was 229 yeas and 191 nays along party lines and was the strongest step yet by Democrats in their investigation of Trump.

The vote was the latest battle in the war between the legislation and executive branches as Trump has fought congressional subpoenas with all his might. The court cases are likely to make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Nadler said he will first go after former White House counsel Don McGahn

Tuesday’s House vote was 229 yeas and 191 nays along party lines

McGahn refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee at the request of the Trump administration.

The former White House counsel was a prominent witness in Mueller’s report in the sections dealing with Trump relationship with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump was angry with for recusing himself from overseeing Mueller’s probe.

McGahn also testified about the president questioning if he could get rid of Mueller.

Democrats want more details on this as part of their investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice.

But missing from Tuesday’s vote was a plan to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress after a deal was reached with the Justice Department where the DoJ will provide additional documents dealing with potential obstruction of justice by President Trump to Nadler’s committee.

Nadler said the documents would allow his committee members to perform their ‘constitutional duties.’ He said it would ‘hold the criminal contempt process in abeyance.’

But the measure allows other Democratic chairmen to pursue legal action if any Trump official – past or present – refuses a congressional subpoena.

The resolution gives senior lawmakers – Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Majority Whip James Clyburn, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise – the power to approve a court challenge without it going through the full House.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been fighting congressional subpoenas

But another House investigation is going after Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for refusing to hand over documents about the administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the census

The House Oversight and Reform Committee could be the first test of that. The panel is scheduled to vote Wednesday on holding Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for refusing to turn over documents related to the administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.