Hope Hicks, President Donald Trump’s former communications director is returning to the White House as a counselor to President Trump and senior adviser.
Hicks will return to the White House sometime in early March, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, though she noted that “details are still being determined.”
The White House also announced that former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former press secretary Sean Spicer have also been rehired by Trump, almost three years after both men unceremoniously departed the administration.
Hicks was one of the president’s closest advisers dating back to the launch of his campaign in 2015 and worked in the press office at the White House, including as communications director.
Spicer, who resigned in July 2017 out of dissatisfaction with the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director, courted controversy for repeatedly telling lies on behalf the president. Among those were false claims that Trump’s inauguration had the biggest crowds in history, that the president would have won the popular vote in the 2016 if not for voter fraud, that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and that Adolf Hitler had not used chemical weapons.
Priebus, whose six-month tenure as chief of staff was the shortest in history for anyone who did not hold the position on an interim basis, was fired in July 2017. A number of reasons cited for his termination, including: Trump’s disappointment with Priebus’ stewardship of the campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act and a belief that Priebus lacked the strength to run the White House.
