Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba is no longer on the former president’s legal defense team in the high-stakes New York state fraud case and will assume a new role with his political action committee.
Mr. Trump’s Save America leadership PAC announced in a statement on July 7 that Ms. Habba will take over as its legal spokesperson and general counsel. Ms. Habba’s New Jersey law firm, according to the PAC, will still assist Mr. Trump with “certain legal matters.”
“Alina has worked diligently and tirelessly on many of the witch-hunt cases that have been unfairly brought against President Trump,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said.
“It is an honor to be asked by such a leader as President Trump to help Save America. Being able to devote more time to addressing publicly his many legal matters is the privilege of a lifetime,” Ms. Habba said in her own statement.
The only reason for her departure that has been provided is that it will allow her to “devote her time” to her new duties, including serving as Mr. Trump’s “media representative on legal matters.”
In the meantime, Ms. Habba will withdraw from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s case against Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization “and other cases.”
Ms. James started her probe into the Trump Organization in 2019 after lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that his former employer had been falsely inflating the value of its assets when applying for bank loans. She sued Mr. Trump’s namesake business last year for fraud, seeking $250 million in damages and other sanctions that could ban the group from operating in the Empire State.
Mr. Trump has denounced the lawsuit as a “witch hunt,” accusing Ms. James of going after him only to save her bid for reelection as New York’s attorney general.
Classified Document Case
While the July 7 announcement specifically mentioned only the New York state lawsuit, Ms. Habba is probably better known for speaking on behalf of Mr. Trump’s legal team in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, which she isn’t a part of.On June 13, Ms. Habba delivered a furious statement outside the Miami courthouse where her boss pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges related to keeping classified material at the Florida beach resort after leaving the White House. She denounced federal prosecutors who brought the case, saying they’re weaponizing the justice system in an attempt to undermine a 2024 front-runner.
“In recent years, we have seen the rise of politically motivated prosecutors who don’t care for impartiality, don’t care for due process for equal protection of laws,” she said outside the courthouse as pro-Trump demonstrators chanted in the background.
Ms. Habba called out former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden for not being prosecuted despite also keeping classified documents on private email servers and in private homes.
“Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden himself, retained possession of classified documents that have not been prosecuted. And none of them came into possession of those documents while they were president,” the lawyer said.
“They pursue charges against President Trump while turning a blind eye to others is emblematic of the corruption that we have here,” she added, saying it was “the type of thing” that typically takes place in corrupted countries such as Cuba and Venezuela. “What is being done to the president should terrify all citizens of this country.”
