Trump lawyer Alina Habba struggled through her cross-examination of E. Jean Carroll on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the defamation case against the former president, repeatedly admonished the attorney for running afoul of his court rules and general procedures.
Prior to Carroll’s testimony, Habba requested an adjournment so that Trump could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.
“The application is denied. I will hear no further argument on it. None. Do you understand that word? None. Please sit down,” Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, told Habba about the motion that he already denied.
Kaplan repeatedly interrupted Habba’s questions, including when she began to read from a document that had not been formally entered into evidence, sending the trial to a recess.
“During which you should refresh your memory about how it is you get a document into evidence," Kaplan told the lawyer.
Habba later questioned Carroll about whether or not she deleted any emailed threats after receiving a subpoena and requested a mistrial citing “deleted evidence” while the jury was still in the room.
“Denied,” Kaplan said “The jury will disregard everything Ms. Habba just said.”
Habba: Ms. Carroll, are you aware it is illegal to delete evidence?
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 17, 2024
Carroll's lawyer: Objection
Habba: I move for a mistrial, evidence has been deleted
Judge Kaplan: Denied and the jury will disregard everything Ms. Habba just said
Kaplan tangled with Habba about 14 times, according to an analysis by Business Insider.
"The last I heard, Ms. Habba, I do not need announcements from counsel on what they intend to do," Kaplan told Habba when she interrupted Carroll’s direct testimony. “And I make the rulings here, not the lawyers.”
“Has Alina Habba ever tried a case in her life?” questioned former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.
Has Alina Habba ever tried a case before in her life? https://t.co/AsBU9Cw8Ew
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 17, 2024
“Can you imagine showing up to a trial and asking the trial court judge, ‘How do you suggest I proceed?’ because you don't know the rules of evidence?” tweeted Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.
“Lawyers can bring a variety of different skills to a legal team. Trial technique, oral arguments, subject expertise, negotiations, media relations, or witness work,” he added. “Unfortunately, here, the wrong skill set has been matched up with the wrong setting.”
Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de le Vega warned that Habba’s performance would not help her sway the jury.
“Habba might think she's doing a great job by performing for Trump, but she's already succeeded in making the jury dislike her intensely. (I am 100% certain of that.)” she tweeted. “Since the jury will be deciding the amount of damages, it would be a lot smarter to be as charming as hell.”
Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb called Habba’s performance a “minor league job.”
“The judge was very patient with her,” he told CNN. “He gave her sort of two recesses or two opportunities to try to guide her through it himself, called a halt, and took a break with the hope that one of her colleagues could help her figure out how to do what it was that she intended. It was really sort of, you know, embarrassing.”
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann noted that Habba stepped into the role of Trump’s lead lawyer in the case after attorney Joe Tacopina withdrew ahead of the trial.
"So she has had to step in, presumably, with a larger role than she anticipated," he told MSNBC. "Mr. Tacopina is a trial lawyer. Alina Habba may be a very skilled lawyer outside of the courtroom, and maybe inside the courtroom — it doesn't bear the rules of evidence. So, it is an odd choice.... because basic evidentiary issues are the kinds of things that... [are] not something that's part of her toolkit."
“Alina Habba, she's doing a few things. One, she's doing the spectacle for her client, but two, she's also doing it because she doesn't know what the hell she's doing,” MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang said Wednesday. “I am comfortable in saying that the lack of competence on the part of Alina Habba is glaringly obvious now."
Phang stressed that Habba has shown she “does not know how to enter evidence” or “how to impeach a witness.”
“She does not have the requisite trial skills to be defending the former president of the United States in a multimillion dollar defamation trial. And yet, you get what you pay for, and that is exactly what's happening to Donald Trump right now,” she said.
“There are no cameras, there is no audio in the courtroom so the only thing coming out of that courtroom is gonna be Trump doing his pressers after court and Habba doing her pressers after court saying what they say, which is always wrong,” Phang added. “It is not an accurate relay of what happened in court, and that's the frustrating thing about what happens when there's this perversion of the judicial system."
