Hope Hicks is resigning as White House communications director a day after admitting she occasionally told “white lies” for President Donald Trump.

Ms Hick’s spent nine hours delivering her closed-door testimony on Wednesday, in which she was interviewed over Russian interference in the 2016 election and contact between Mr Trump’s campaign and Russia, AP reported.

Ms Hicks released a statement Thursday confirming she would leave the White House.

“There are no words to adequately express my gratitude to President Trump,” she said.

Mr Trump praised Ms Hicks for her work over the last three years, both as a White House aide and as a Trump organisation employee, saying he “will miss having her by my side”.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the timeline for Ms Hicks’ departure was unclear and that it was not related to her testimony to the congressional committee.

Ms Hicks was Mr Trump’s spokeswoman during the 2016 presidential campaign before becoming the White House communications director.

Earlier, Democrat and intelligence panel member Adam Schiff said Ms Hicks answered questions about her role in the presidential campaign, but refused to answer questions about events since Mr Trump took office.

Ms Hicks had been advised not to answer any questions since the presidential election, Mr Schiff said.

She did, however, answer a question about whether she had ever lied for the President, saying she had told “white lies” for him on occasion, AP quoted a person familiar with the testimony as saying.

The person, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Ms Hicks told the panel she had not lied about anything “substantive”.

Intelligence panel member, Republican Senator Tom Rooney, confirmed Ms Hicks’ testimony saying: “When specifically asked whether or not she was instructed to lie by the President, or the candidate, with regard to Russia, the investigation or our investigation, the answer to that question was ‘no'”.

“And that’s our jurisdiction. Not whether or not he asked her to cancel a meeting for him, or something like that,” he said.

In the wide-ranging interview, Ms Hicks was also asked specifically about the transition period between the election and the inauguration, and her role in drafting a statement responding to news reports about a 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the investigation into Russian meddling, is reportedly interested in that statement, which declared a meeting between between Trump campaign officials and Russians was concerning an adoption program.

It was later revealed through emails from the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, he had agreed to meet a Russian lawyer after he was promised dirt on his father’s presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

“All of our questions about what went into that statement went unanswered,” Mr Schiff said.

Mr Schiff said Democrats had asked for a subpoena after she refused to answer questions, but Republicans had declined to issue one, AP reports.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Wednesday, “we are cooperating because, as the President has said repeatedly, there is no collusion and we’re going to continue to cooperate, and hopefully they’ll wrap this up soon.”

– With agencies