Government

Trump Lawyer Threatens ‘Mayhem,’ Demands To Know Who’s Snitching To The Government

Gettin' awful close to that line ...

By Liz Dye on August 16, 2022 4:43 pm
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Alina Habba (headshot from Habba Madaio LLP)

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba is wilding out on TV again. The New Jersey attorney represents Trump in his RICO LOLsuit against Hillary Clinton and the DNC and also in his failed effort to fend off investigation by the New York Attorney General.

Habba is no stranger to saying crazy shit on behalf of her client, at one point firing off a cease and desist letter demanding that the Pulitzer board revoke prizes for the New York Times and Washington Post. This week she joined the chorus of Trumpland lawyers baselessly accusing the FBI of planting evidence when it conducted the search of the former president’s golf club. So it’s not exactly surprising to see her all but threaten violence in the streets if the Justice Department dares to indict her client.

“At the end of the day, I think that would cause so much mayhem. That would be a monstrous mistake,” she said on Newsmax yesterday morning, just four days after a man named Ricky Shiffer posted to Trump’s Truth Social network, “If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I.,” and then got himself killed in a shootout with police after attempting to storm the FBI field office in Cincinnati.

Habba went on to wonder why the FBI needed to conduct “this insane raid” when Trump was “cooperating.” By which she meant he was steadfastly refusing to return documents despite requests from the Archives, subpoenas, and a personal visit from the head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division.

This morning she was back on the conservative network to demand that the Justice Department unseal the affidavit underlying the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago.

“The president’s position, the same as what I would advise him, is to ask them to uncover everything so that we can see what is going on,” she said.

In fact, the president has taken no such position. Probably because he’s too busy passing legislation and knows it would be inappropriate to comment on a pending law enforcement investigation.

The ex-president will not shut up about it, though.

“I understand the witness protection issue, but at the same time, these witnesses are truly not going to be concealed for very long. That’s just not the nature of the DOJ and the FBI and unfortunately our country,” Habba went on, seemingly oblivious that users on her employer’s social media platform immediately doxxed the magistrate judge on this case, as well as his family, exposing them to a wave of online threats and harassment. Indeed, a former Trump White House employee did the same for one of the FBI agents, and soon information about his wife and child appeared online, as well.

“There’s always leaks. I’ve dealt with that even with, you know, local law enforcement,” said the lawyer whose prior practice appears to be almost entirely civil in nature.

In point of fact, grand jury information does not “always leak.” There’s no precedent for revealing the names of confidential sources pre-indictment, and certainly not when the subject of the investigation is whipping his supporters into a dangerous frenzy online. Nevertheless, Habba demands that the Justice Department tip its entire hand to assure the American public that a duly signed warrant by an independent federal magistrate is on the up an up.

Not that Habba, an officer of the court, would wish that the “mayhem” she promises would be visited upon witnesses against the former president. Perish the very thought! But, she warns, their names are going to come out pretty soon, and, well …

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.