Donald Trump is moving on from being represented by Alina Habba in his appeal of the atrocious E. Jean Carroll decision. He wrote that he his interviewing new law firms to handle his appeal.
This also comes after Habba was threatened with sanctions by Carroll’s lawyer for suggesting the judge mentored her and was therefore biased. Habba then dropped her claim.
Here’s more from Trump himself:
Forbes has the details on Habba:
The ex-president was represented at the initial trial by attorney Alina Habba—who also represents him in the civil fraud case against him and his company, and in other cases—who was repeatedly chided by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan at the trial and had to be reminded of basic courtroom procedures.
Following the trial verdict, Habba filed a letter with the court alleging Kaplan had an improper bias in the case, citing a New York Post report on his previous work at the same firm as Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation) that mentored the lawyer—which legal experts said wouldn’t constitute a conflict of interest that would require him to recuse.
Roberta Kaplan denied the claims the judge mentored her as “baseless” in a court filing Tuesday—noting she and the judge had only overlapped at the same firm for two years and never interacted in that time—and suggested she could ask the court to sanction Habba for making the claim, to which Habba then told the court she was just trying to ask if there was any truth to the Post report and would drop the issue.
Habba’s law firm Habba Madaio & Associates and Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung have not yet responded to requests for comment on Trump’s Truth Social post and whether Habba will stay on as Trump’s attorney in the appeal.
It is possible that Trump keeps Habba on in some capacity. Whatever he does he needs the best legal team he can get to reverse this decision.