Politics

President Trump To Appoint Hope Hicks To New Role

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Anders Hagstrom White House Correspondent
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President Donald Trump announced plans to appoint current senior adviser Hope Hicks to a new government role, the White House announced Tuesday.

Hicks will join the William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which aims to “improve intercultural relations.” Hicks’ appointment came among a long list of last-minute appointments Trump is making ahead of President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration in January. Other notable appointments include former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to the Holocaust Memorial Council and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center.

Hicks returned to the White House in mid February, roughly two years after she resigned in 2018.

Hicks is believed to be the staffer that initially exposed Trump and First Lady Melania Trump to the coronavirus in October. She tested positive for the virus after spending hours traveling with the president in late September.

It is common for outgoing presidents to appoint administration loyalists to government boards at the end of an administration. Trump also announced appointments for former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham and White House Staff Secretary Derek Lyons.

Despite the appointments, however, Trump has not conceded the election. He has continued to insist as recently as Tuesday morning that Democrats “rigged” the election, though he has provided little evidence.

Now-former Attorney General Bill Barr stated before his resignation that both the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security had looked into accusations of fraud in Dominion voting systems and elsewhere, but had not found evidence of fraud that might have changed the result of the election.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the Associated Press on Dec. 1. (RELATED: REPORT: Rudy Giuliani Has Discussed Receiving Preemptive Pardon With Trump)

Trump announced Barr’s resignation two weeks later on Dec. 14, saying Barr will step down “just before Christmas.”