General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSeth Abramson really has the goods on Alina Habba.
This is from his longer emailed newsletter. I encourage you to subscribe -- it's just five bucks a month.
Alina Habba
New Trump attorney Alina Habba has been called by Bloomberg the one person on Trumps legal team who has moved to consolidate control [in her] over his legal strategy across his cases in New York, Florida, and elsewhere (including, presumably, the ongoing election-fraud investigation of Trump in Georgia). Attorney Habba has been appearing in pretty much all of his [Trumps] big cases, Bloomberg reports, in every instance acting aggressive[ly]. What is odd about Habba, Bloomberg notes, is that she truly came out of nowhere; she runs a tiny boutique law firm with just five attorneys, and apparently is such an odd choice for a presidential legal team that when Bloomberg told Trump that it wanted to write a profile on her he insisted on being personally interviewed for the profile as wellan unusual demand, to be sure.
Habbas practice covers New York and New Jersey, and apparently she first managed to enter Trumps orbit by becoming a membernotably, one of just three hundredat his Bedminster Golf Club.
To Bloomberg, Trump praised Habba for (in Bloombergs summary of his comments) filing lawsuits against his enemies and challenging the New York Attorney General investigation into [the Trump Organization]. Bloomberg calls her a MAGA character and well-respected legal-news site Above the Law has called her a gross racist hell boss. She has already, in just her short time as a Trump lawyer, repeatedly been caught making false claims about the law and history and making unsupported and truly wild allegations about the Department of Justice. She has even threatened violenceas has Trump himself and a key GOP ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)if the criminal probe of Trump in Florida continues.
But most striking, for our present purposes, is what Habba told Trumps judge in New York to get the contempt order against him temporarily lifted:
[We conducted] a diligent, complete and comprehensive search for all documents and information requested by the [James] subpoena
.I diligently searched each and every room of respondents [Trumps] private residence located at Mar-a-Lago, including all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, et cetera.
Habbi also told the judge, per NBC News, that she did a similar search of Trumps office in Florida, and another Trump attorney searched his office and residence at Trump Tower in New York City. Searches were also conducted of various file cabinets, the filing said.
If true, this means that Habba came across all of the classified records Trump was hiding in his private residence at Mar-a-Lagoparticularly, as we now know, items hidden in his private closets and drawers therein early May, despite the fact that other members of Trumps legal team represented to the FBI a month later that there were no such records in any of the places their leader Habba had searched a month earlier.
So either (a) Habba lied to a New York state judge about searching for documents responsive to a subpoena in order to lift a contempt ordermeaning she was not given by Trump, or did not seek from Trump, any permission to search the locations in Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago that she says she searched; meaning, in turn, that not only should Trump still be under a daily contempt order but he and Habba may have committed Obstruction of Justice to hide certain incriminating documents from the New York Attorney Generalor (b) Habba did conduct the search as she claimed, and in doing so (i) illegally handled classified records, (ii) did nothing to reveal that Trump was in possession of such records (or urge him to turn them over immediately to the government), and (iii) allowed members of Trumps legal team who she was apparently supervising at the time as part of a consolidated legal strategy, Evan Corcoran and known January 6 insurrectionist Christina Bobb, to lie to the FBI (a federal felony) about the contents of Trumps closets and drawers in his private residence in Florida.
Either way, this would suggest that Trump and his legal team committed more crimes than we previously knew about in both New York and Florida.
dchill
(38,474 posts)Grasswire2
(13,568 posts)crickets
(25,963 posts)maxsolomon
(33,316 posts)what consequences will come of blatantly lying to judges? None.
Timewas
(2,193 posts)Anyone really surprised by anything that bunch does?? About the only thing they might do that would surprise me would be to cooperate fully and honestly with all requests
dchill
(38,474 posts)From Putin, MBS and the highest bidders.
SergeStorms
(19,199 posts)legal cases she's not doing such a great job. She was not included in the gang of Trump attorneys at today's "special master" hearing in Palm Beach, Florida today.
ancianita
(36,031 posts)The only two attorneys that I've found before Judge Cannon today were Chris Kise and James Trusty; maybe the rest serve other purposes and were not there? Not sure there are any more besides Bobb and Habba.
Shes been admitted to the bars of NY and NJ but not in FL? Just guessing here, but she would need to be a member of the FL bar to appear at the Palm Beach hearing, correct?
SergeStorms
(19,199 posts)in the FBI search of his Mar-ma-lardo estate, so I'd imagine she's been admitted to the Florida Bar.
Either that, or Trump's "legal team" is more inept and unqualified than anyone could possibly imagine. That's certainly within the realm of reason. No qualified and specialized attorneys will go near the Trump debacle. They want no part of Trump's constant lies or a client who won't keep his enormous mouth shut.
There's no Roy Cohn behind Trump's legal strategy, that's for sure.
thesquanderer
(11,986 posts)VALKRIS: You will find {the data} useful.
COMMANDER KRUGE: Then you have seen it?
VALKRIS: I have, my lord.
COMMANDER KRUGE: Unfortunate.
VALKRIS: Understood.
(and then he destroys her ship.)
Earth-shine
(3,996 posts)She got them killed too.
The Klingons held Kruge as a martyr. The Klingon ship in ST V was named "the Kruge."
SKKY
(11,804 posts)I mean, come on. That alone should discourage someone from representing him.
SergeStorms
(19,199 posts)would want to represent a client who's shown no ability to keep his galactic sized mouth shut?
Trump continues to incriminate himself with his constant pleas to his MAGAts on whatever social media sites that still allow him to post on them.
He is - without a doubt - the worst client an attorney could ever represent.