Representing Donald Trump Once Lost Alina Habba A Major Amount Of Money
Critics slam Alina Habba for deepening Donald Trump's debts, but her legal inefficiencies have cost her dearly, too. In March 2022, the New Jersey lawyer filed a case against Hillary Clinton and 30 other people and enterprises on behalf of the former president. The suit accused the defendants of plotting and creating propaganda about Trump having a problematic relationship with Russia to steal the 2016 election from him. Habba and Trump's lawsuit was assigned to Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, but things didn't go as the accusers had hoped.
Right away, the defendants' attorneys pointed out to Habba that there were "deficiencies" in the suit. However, instead of fixing them, Habba added 80 more pages of equally frivolous complaints in June 2022. Consequently, the judge dismissed the case in September of that year and, in November, directed Trump and Habba to pay $50,000 to one of the defendants. Then, in January 2023, he released a 46-page Order of Sanctions formally reprimanding the plaintiffs for abusing legal processes.
Middlebrooks' order started by noting that "no reasonable lawyer would have filed" the case, adding that Trump wasn't misled by Habba and was equally guilty. Relying on the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, the judge ordered Trump and Habba to pay $937,989.39 for the defendants' legal fees. As for why Trump's (and, by extension, Habba's) case was so flawed, the order of sanctions highlighted inaccurate information, false claims, and even made-up incidents.
Habba and Trump relied on information from Russian intelligence to sue Hillary Clinton
According to Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, Donald Trump and Alina Habba's lawsuit relied on unsuitable evidence. To back up their claims about election theft, the pair cited a letter from John Ratcliffe, the former Director of National Intelligence, to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. "Ratcliffe's letter stated that Clinton and her campaign conceived the false Russia collusion story to protect Clinton's presidential bid," Trump had petitioned.
However, according to Middlebrooks, they neglected to add that Ratcliffe was reporting information from Russian Intelligence and had explicitly stated that he didn't know if the claims were true. It seems pretty ironic that Trump and Habba were attempting to disprove that they were connected to Russia using Russian information.
Judge Middlebrooks also pointed out that Trump accused James Comey, the former Director of the FBI, of teaming up with Clinton to "maliciously prosecute him" — even though Comey never prosecuted him. The judge further called Habba out for making easily spotted errors and reckless claims. Middlebrooks said that his decision to sanction Trump and Habba was because they had shown a pattern of abuse of the legal system. He pointed to their cases with the Pulitzer Board, New York AG Letitia James, Twitter, and CNN. Following this ruling, Trump, who was suing the New York Attorney General for investigating him, withdrew the case.
Alina Habba spun the narrative to a crowd of MAGA supporters
In December 2023, Alina Habba recounted the story of the Hillary Clinton lawsuit to a crowd of MAGA crusaders, and her account of events was, interesting — to say the least. After stating that the suit was assigned to a "Clinton-appointed judge," she dramatically asked the crowd, "What do you think happened?" (via X, formerly known as Twitter). She added: "Nobody's heard of the case, right? That's because it's gone. I never met the judge. I never walked into the courtroom. There were probably 50 lawyers representing all of the radical left."
Habba conveniently omitted that this was probably because they sued 31 defendants. "It got dismissed," she said, "and me and President Trump got sanctioned a million dollars for going against crooked Hillary." When someone in the crowd screamed, "What!", the lawyer tossed a smug smile into the crowd. "You didn't know that, did you? Fake news, folks, fake news. They won't report it. But guess what? We paid that million, and we're gonna keep fighting." The enthusiastic crowd clapped and cheered her on, but having context definitely makes it an awkward moment for Alina Habba.