"Audibly sniffling": Trump "locks his eyes" on Hope Hicks as she breaks down in tears at trial

Former Trump aide Hope Hicks broke down in tears on the stand Friday just as the ex-president's defense team was beginning to cross examine her -- and just after she testified that it would be "out of character" for Michael Cohen to have paid $130,000 in hush money to a adult film star without expecting anyone to pay him back.

Hicks, who helped lead Trump's communications strategy during the 2016 campaign and his time in office, earlier Friday said that she was "nervous" to be testifying in Manhattan hush money case. While she praised Trump as a "very hard worker," she also offered details useful to the prosecution, saying she had heard Trump and Cohen discuss the hush payment to Stormy Daniels after the Wall Street Journal publicly revealed its existence in 2018.

The New York Times' Kate Christobek, reporting from inside the courtroom where Trump is being tried on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, wrote that the former president "largely avoided looking at Hicks" as she spoke. But that changed just as defense counsel Emil Bove was preparing to question her about her time working for the Trump Organization -- and Hicks began to tear up. Trump, Christobek wrote, "locks his eyes on her as she starts to cry."

According to CNN, Hicks was "audibly sniffling with tears," resulting in a brief interruption to proceedings and both she and the jury leaving the room. "As she left, Hicks moved her hair to one side of her neck, lowered her head and quickened her pace slightly as she passed Trump," the network reported.

The incident came after Hicks rebutted the defense team's argument that Cohen was freelancing when he paid off Daniels, noting that it came as the Trump campaign was in turmoil following the release of the "Access Hollywood" tape, in which the Republican candidate boasted of sexually assaulting women.

Cohen would not have paid Daniels on his own volition, Hicks testified.

"I'd say that would be out of character for Michael," Hicks said, per NBC News. "I did not know Michael to be an especially charitable or selfless person; he is a kind of person who seeks credit."