Trump attorney Alina Habba revealed why she’s not in Manhattan at former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial this week, even though she represented him in a number of other cases in New York City.
In a Monday interview with The Benny Show, a politically conservative podcast, Habba explained she wasn’t there because she only practices civil law, and thus couldn’t help his legal team in the criminal case related to the alleged hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Trump is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to an alleged hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. He denies all charges, and claims of an affair with Daniels, saying the case is part of a political witch hunt against him.
“Obviously, you know, being a type A person, I wish I was a criminal attorney but I’m not,” Habba said. “But the great news is that, then I can do this and let everybody know what is actually happening.”
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Habba has become one of the most recognizable faces on Trump’s legal team. She made headlines earlier this year when she served as the former president’s lead attorney in the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit, which resulted in an $83.3 million jury verdict against Trump. Habba faced significant criticisms over her courtroom conduct, which legal analysts argued was a result of her inexperience as a trial attorney.
It is unclear if she will represent Trump in his appeal of the January verdict, but Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan has said she wouldn’t be surprised if Trump replaced Habba calling it “painfully clear” that the Trump lawyer lacked the “experience to do simple things like how to get a document into evidence.”
“At one point [Habba] said to the judge, ‘Judge, will you help me?,’ which is a weird thing to say to this judge. And he said something like, ‘Well, you just saw Miss Kaplan. She got, like, 90 documents in when she put E. Jean on direct, didn’t you watch her?’ So it was very awkward and uncomfortable,” Kaplan said in a February podcast appearance with On With Kara Swisher.
Habba also represented Trump in the federal civil lawsuit filed by former Trump fixer Michael Cohen as well as the Florida lawsuit that Trump filed against Hillary Clinton and dozens of former Justice Department and FBI officials. In the latter, Habba and Trump were ordered to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions to the 31 defendants, including Clinton, they sued in the “completely frivolous” Florida lawsuit, a judge found.
Although Habba did not attend the first day of Trump’s criminal trial with him, she defended him outside the courtroom through interviews and signaled her plans to continue acting as the former president’s legal spokesperson.
“I plan, for the next six weeks, to truly just be spitting the truth and giving people facts they may not be hearing while he’s in court,” she told commentator Benny Johnson on Monday.
Trump was seen seated between attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove during Monday’s trial proceedings. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who previously worked besides Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is also Trump’s attorney in his two federal criminal cases. Bragg is the top prosecutor in the Manhattan case against Trump.
Blanche hired Bove in September, describing him as “an expert in white collar” cases. Bove previously served as a a federal prosecutor for nearly a decade in the Southern District of New York, before working as a defense attorney. Trump is also being represented by Susan Necheles, who represented the Trump Organization in its 2022 civil trial.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.