Monkey talk...

Hicks departure leaves White House without Trump translator

The administration said the communications director would leave in the next several weeks.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN, ANDREW RESTUCCIA and ELIANA JOHNSON

White House communications director Hope Hicks said on Wednesday that she was planning to resign, leaving President Donald Trump without one of his longest-serving aides and strongest defenders — and resulting in yet another high-profile vacancy in the West Wing.

“There are no words to adequately express my gratitude to President Trump,” Hicks said in a statement provided by the White House, in which she did not say what she planned to do next. “I wish the president and his administration the very best as he continues to lead our country.”

Hicks was one of the first people to join Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, and she was nearly always at his side on the campaign trail and in the White House. But her decision to exit came after she drew scrutiny amid several minefields facing the administration.

On Tuesday, she declined to answer many questions during an appearance before House investigators looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In early February, she was drawn into the controversy surrounding former staff secretary Rob Porter, whom she had been dating and who resigned amid claims of physical and verbal abuse from two ex-wives.

Hicks is expected to depart the White House within the next several weeks, though no firm date has been set yet, according to a senior administration official. She’s expected to return to her home state of Connecticut to spend time with her family before looking for a new job somewhere on the East Coast.

White House chief of staff John Kelly is said to be eyeing the White House director of strategic communications, Mercedes Schlapp, as Hicks’ replacement, but he was also considering external candidates as recently as last week, according to an administration official and another source close to the White House.

“Hope is still here,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote in an email. “Nothing to announce at this time.”

White House aides stressed that they were far from making a decision about Hicks’ replacement, and one official said Trump himself would probably play a central role in the search for candidates.

The news came as a shock to many in the White House because Hicks had told only a handful of senior officials, including Kelly and the president, of her plans to leave after roughly three years of working side by side with Trump. One official said the decision to leave was Hicks’ entirely, and that there was no perfect time for her to make the announcement.

A former campaign official said the departure left the president and White House without an expert Trump translator. “She was a good buffer,” the official said. “She knew what the president wanted and could explain it to the communications shop so they could execute.”

Now a major gap exists in the White House, with few staffers left from the campaign or New York who know Trump well. The departure of Keith Schiller, a longtime security guard and body man, was a blow to the president, as is Hicks’ departure. Both were viewed as deeply loyal aides who understood the president’s whims, the rhythms of his day and his wishes.

Kelly’s relationship with Hicks has sometimes been strained, according to an administration official, who said it reached a low during the firestorm over Porter. But the official said their relationship recovered and had largely been positive.

The White House released a statement from Kelly praising Hicks. “She has served her country with great distinction,” he said. “To say that she will be missed is an understatement.”

Hicks gathered with staffers on Wednesday evening in Sanders’ office to announce her plans to depart. A White House official said that it was an “emotional” moment, and that Hicks told her colleagues that her decision was a long time coming and had nothing to do with recent news reports.

She told the team that she was proud of their work and that now was the right time for her to leave the White House. Once she finished talking, everyone applauded and staffers went up to her one by one to say goodbye, a senior administration official said.

Trump has cycled through five communications directors since December 2016. His first pick for the job, campaign aide Jason Miller, withdrew before Trump was sworn in amid allegations that he’d had an affair. Sean Spicer, Mike Dubke and Anthony Scaramucci all later served in the position.

“Hope was a trusted adviser to the president,” Spicer said. “It’ll obviously have a big impact.”

Trump’s White House has faced an unusually high level of turnover in the past 13 months, from the departures of former chief of staff Reince Priebus to chief strategist Steve Bannon.

The departures have left several gaping holes in the White House organizational chart. Trump has not yet found a permanent replacement for Porter. And when deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn departs in the coming weeks, the president will have only one deputy chief of staff — down from three earlier in the administration.

The White House has struggled to recruit top-level talent, according to multiple people close to the administration, with some qualified candidates expressing reluctance to join the West Wing while special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation hogs the headlines.

Even without the recruiting problems, Trump is unlikely to find a communications director whom he trusts as much as Hicks.

“She’ll be incredibly difficult to replace,” White House attorney Ty Cobb, who has been serving as the official point man for the president’s response to the Russia investigation, told POLITICO. “She couldn’t have been a more supportive or talented ally to me.”

A Hicks friend said the cumulative effect of her time working for Trump — the high-profile nature of a job with a free-wheeling boss who is his own communications director, coupled with the stresses of the Russia investigation and most recently with her relationship to Porter — all combined to send her for the exits.

“This was a case of, ‘I’m done. Physically. Emotionally. Just drained,’” the friend said. “Three years in that kind of environment is a lifetime.”

The friend said Hicks had been talking to confidants for months “about what does the other end of this look like.”

Hicks’ title, the friend said, didn’t really reflect what she did for the president. “She was not just a staffer for him,” the friend said. “You can find another communications director. I think for Trump this is closer to losing a limb.”

The Trump White House, even if it is denying that Hicks’s departure had anything to do with her Russia testimony, nonetheless opened itself up to criticism and questions based on the decision to announce it Wednesday, said a Republican operative close to the Trump White House.

“Being a practitioner of PR would suggest if it didn’t have to do with yesterday, you’d have waited a few days,” the operative said. “This is what you do for a living. You know how the press is going to interpret it. I’d have waited a week.”