Government

Superlawyer Alina Habba Attacks Trump Jurors. Luckily She's Not An Agent Of The ... OH, WAIT!

Well, maybe the DA won't notice, right?

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Closing Arguments Delivered In Trump’s Civil Fraud Trial In NYC

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

It’s been five weeks since Justice Juan Merchan signed the gag order in Donald Trump’s criminal trial for creating false business records to hide the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. In that time, the court has expanded the order once and signed three orders to show cause why the defendant should not be held in contempt and sanctioned for violating it.

As Trump himself might say, no one has ever seen anything like this before.

On Tuesday of last week, Justice Merchan held a hearing on the first alleged violations at which Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove attempted to argue that RTs are not endorsements and thus it was totally fine for Trump to quote other people saying things he’s not allowed to under the gag. Asked for any caselaw backing up this position, Trump’s lead counsel Todd Blanche admitted that he had none, but called it “common sense.”

Trump immediately marched out of the hearing and violated the order anew by attacking Michael Cohen, prompting yet another show cause motion and a second contempt hearing scheduled for Thursday of this week. And the fun looks to be continuing, thanks to Trump’s sparklemagic lawyer Alina Habba.

Fresh off her success representing Trump in the civil fraud trial where he and his eponymous family business were fined $464 million, Alina has thoughts to share about New York juries. Again.

Spoiler Alert: These jurors are bad!

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“President Trump has done absolutely nothing wrong. He should win,” she fulminated on Fox this weekend. “And if he’s given a fair jury, if he’s given a fair court, if he’s not in Manhattan, which is a completely blue state where they only polled blue state members of the jury on purpose, well that’s a different game.”

It’s not clear what Habba means by “only poll[ing] blue state members of the jury.” Nor is it clear why she thinks Trump is entitled to be tried outside the venue where the false business records were created — i.e. where he did the alleged crimes. But she’s been banging this drum a lot lately.

Last week she complained to Newsmax’s Greg Kelly that she didn’t have high hopes “that the jury will do the right thing,” because “we’re in a blue state, as you know, Greg, and I think everything’s by design.” (Manhattan is a state now?)

The CivPro understander is similarly pissed that “We’re in a case that was eight years old, over the statute of limitations, was denied by Cy Vance, then brought only after President Trump decided he was going to run for office.”

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Check from Donald Trump to Michael Cohen dated August 2017

Check from Donald Trump to Michael Cohen dated October 2017

But Habba’s ranting may offend more than the concept of linear time. (How many years ago was October of 2017?) Because the gag order bars Trump from “making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.” And Habba would certainly appear to be acting as Trump’s agent, since she’s both his lawyer and “legal spokesperson and general counsel” at his Save America PAC.

Indeed Habba’s statement slagging the jurors as illegally biased bears a strong resemblance to Trump’s remarks on April 22, as quoted in the DA’s latest show cause motion:

But this judge, uh, said that I can’t get away from the trial. You know he’s rushing the trial like crazy. Nobody’s ever seen a thing go like this. That jury was picked so fast — 95% democrats. The area’s mostly all democrat. You think of it as a — just a purely democrat area. It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you.

As prosecutors note, “This statement relates to this proceeding, and to a prospective juror or juror in this proceeding.” And so does Habba’s!

As of this writing, Justice Merchan has not yet ruled on the first tranche of violations. Countdown to another show cause motion in 3..2…

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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