How Alina Habba Describes Her Treatment In Court As Trump's Lawyer
Donald Trump's lawyer Alina Habba may have become more well-known after representing the former president in his 2023 E. Jean Carroll defamation case but Habba has actually been representing Trump much longer than that. In fact, she's been his lawyer for years, and as such, Habba has noticed how judges regard her slightly differently as a result. "I have never been treated the way I'm treated when I walk into court and I say I represent President Trump," she informed Newsweek. With just that part of her statement alone, one imagines that the behavior could go one of two ways — either the judges are impressed that she's the representative of a former president or they're critical and irritated.
From Habba's perspective, it's definitely the latter. On an episode of Newsmax's "Carl Higbie Frontline," she discussed the alleged negative reaction from judges towards both Trump and his legal representatives, claiming, "They try and make attorneys on the team look or seem like they don't know what they're doing." Habba offered an example of how she felt that the judge in one of the cases in which she represented Trump was making it seem like she was incompetent to the press that were reporting on the case. "I remember thinking, 'you're doing this on purpose. You're doing this in front of a jury. You're doing this in front of the press, and the jury is impressionable to them,'" she recalled. And it didn't end there.
Alina Habba sees judges as anti-Trump
It sounds like for Alina Habba, the judge's commentary had an ulterior motive of trying to set Donald Trump up for failure — and it wasn't an isolated incident. There have been some courtroom run-ins between judges on Trump's cases and his lawyers, though whether those are emblematic of a bias against the controversial politician, as Habba seems to believe, or if they would happen with any defendant, it's impossible to say for certain. It may actually be a goal to get judges to engage in a dust-up with Trump's legal reps, however. "[Trump] wants to be admonished and he wants his lawyers admonished as much as possible to feed the impression that he fraudulently sells to his supporters that the judges are being unfair to him and that he's a victim," Ty Cobb, who worked as a lawyer for the Trump administration, asserted to AP News.
One such altercation between a Trump lawyer and a judge, which Habba pointed out on Newsmax, occurred between Todd Blanche and Judge Juan Merchan during the instantly infamous hush money case in New York. It was during an argument about whether or not Trump had violated the gag order Merchan put in place. The judge cautioned Blanche that he was "losing all credibility with this court" after the lawyer suggested that his client wasn't acting unprovoked but couldn't come up with any examples to illustrate his point (via Fox News). But, from Habba's perspective at least, this was Merchan showing his hand as a judge who's prejudiced against Trump.
Donald Trump has clashed with judges before
One of the biggest ongoing points of conflict between judges, Donald Trump, and his lawyers concerns gag orders. The former president had one in the E. Jean Carroll cases as well as in his hush money trial. In the case of the latter, it prevents him from speaking about the judge, witnesses, and jury members in a way that may be seen as intimidation while the case is still ongoing. For his part, Trump decried the trial as "a kangaroo court" on Truth Social (via The Hill) and described it as an example of "political persecution" in an interview outside the courthouse (via Fox News).
Several lawyers would probably commiserate with Alina Habba's opinion of how judges treat them. However, it's worth noting that some of Trump's former lawyers have made their feelings about Habba crystal clear — and they're not good. Since losing the 2020 election, a dozen lawyers have stepped away from representing the controversial politician. Funnily enough, this particular timeframe was when Trump, arguably, needed legal counsel the most. Since losing to Joe Biden, he's been charged in four criminal cases ranging from hush money payments to election interference.
Being able to get, and indeed keep, a lawyer seems to be a challenge for Trump. As his former lawyer Michael Cohen put it in a chat with Newsweek, "Finding competent counsel has plagued Donald for many years now due to his erratic legal requests and delinquent payment history." Maybe the judges really aren't the problem?