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'I don't have high hopes': Alina Habba dreads verdict in Trump fraud case

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Former President Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habba is not looking forward to the verdict in her client's civil fraud case, she revealed in an interview this week with Newsmax's Eric Bolling.

The case, brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, claims that Trump and his two adult sons systematically made fraudulent property valuations to manipulate their tax liability and loan terms, something they vigorously denied at trial. But Judge Arthur Engoron has already held Trump liable for fraud in a summary judgment, with the trial largely to decide damages.

Engoron is expected to rule on it Friday.

James is seeking $370 million in fines and a ban on the Trump Organization doing business in the state of New York.

"If I could file the appeal now, I would," Habba told Bolling. "There's no surprises coming here. It's much of the same that we've seen in New York. And I'll be loud and booming after we get the decision. I mean, I'm not — I don't have high hopes."

ALSO READ: Prison president: How Donald Trump could serve from behind bars

"I do believe that there is some, you know, ethics left, I hope that Judge Engoron sees through this," she continued. "But quite honestly, I've seen it time and time again, I've been on weeks and weeks and weeks of trial in New York, and the corruption runs deep, the Trump Derangement Syndrome, frankly, runs even deeper. And they can't see straight, they can't apply law to fact. There was absolutely no laws broken."

Habba, who recently proclaimed she'd "rather be pretty than smart" because she can "fake" being smart, was frequently scolded by Engoron for her and her client's antics in the courtroom. Trump appears dissatisfied with Habba over how she handled his other recent civil trial involving the E. Jean Carroll defamation judgment, and he has said he is interviewing new attorneys to handle that appeal.

Watch the video below or at the link here.

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'I'm stuck': Sean Duffy blames key services 'provider' for airport ground stop

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed a "legacy provider" for Friday's widespread ground stop that impacted more than 1 million travelers across the country.

Duffy blamed telecom provider L3Harris for the outage, though he admitted the Department of Transportation is continuing its root-cause analysis. He claimed that the contractor was updating a router at a remote location that injected instability into the system.

"This is L3Harris," Duffy said. "It's our legacy telecom network. It's owned by L3Harris. With our new architecture, with the money that we're requesting, we will work with the greatest telecom companies in the world, which will be AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen. They're all working with us on the new architecture. But in the meantime, until I can build that, I'm stuck with L3Harris, which owns this network."

Speculation swirled on Friday that the DOT's new SMART weather system could have caused the outage. The company that installed that system, Air Space Intelligence, had previously donated to Duffy's son-in-law's political campaign.

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Trump's DOJ walloped with ‘extraordinary’ order no judge has ever issued: legal expert

A federal judge just took a step against the Justice Department that a veteran lawyer and legal analyst says he's never seen before.

In a Saturday episode of Legal AF, host Michael Popok spoke about an order by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes that came earlier this week, forcing the DOJ to preserve all records in a lawsuit over Trump's overhaul of the East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, D.C.

"Never in the history of the Department of Justice has it been so untrusted by a federal judge or the federal judiciary that it required the federal court to order the Department of Justice and the other aspects of the Trump administration not to destroy documents," Popok said.

The demand to preserve records is commonly made between private lawyers but not from a judge's bench, Popok explained.

"I've seen lawyers tell other lawyers not to destroy things and their clients, too. Never a judge," he said. "This is not business as usual. This is not normal."

Reyes' order came on Nov. 10 and applies to all government records dating back to Aug. 1, 2025, related to the course's redesign or renovation. Popok noted that the order applies to DOJ attorneys working the case and reaches material that the government considers privileged.

"So you're not getting out easy. Attorneys, you better preserve your documents, too," Popok said.

At least three whistleblowers inside the Interior Department claim that records are being destroyed about other Trump pet projects, including the ballroom, arch and Reflecting Pool renovations and officials are communicating with disappearing messages on Signal chats, according to Popok.

Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, has also sent letters to dozens of Trump administration agencies and private companies, including Boeing, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Lockheed Martin, relating to preservation of records from other projects, Popok said.

"If they donated to one of Donald Trump's pet causes, they've got a preservation requirement now as well," he said.

Trump lawyer's 'misguided' threat could 'make things very painful' for admin: analysis

A lawyer who made a "misguided" threat against Democrats last week could make things "very painful" for the Trump administration, according to a new analysis.

Last week, Department of Justice lawyer Will Scharf sent a letter to Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) threatening to prosecute him for telling Trump administration officials to "lawyer up" after Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress. Scharf said he would prosecute Garcia for what he described as "unlawful" subpoenas.

Matt Ford of The New Republic argued in a new analysis that Scharf's threat could backfire on the Trump administration.

"Scharf’s letter — and the sentiment behind it — is misguided," Ford wrote. "Two years of unified Republican governance appears to have left him and White House officials with a false impression of how the U.S. government actually works."

"Oversight is Congress’s gentlest tool to rein in a rogue presidency," he added. "If the White House doesn’t cooperate or comply, a simple majority of lawmakers can make things very painful for them very quickly."

Ford also noted that there is an inherent irony in Scharf's threat, even if it is legally dubious.

"Scharf’s sentiment is still worth rejecting," Ford wrote. "It would be heartening to see at least one person in the Trump White House express concern about starting legal proceedings that are 'designed to deter' someone 'from public service' or launching a legal process 'designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient.'"

Unfortunately, Scharf’s focus is on milquetoast 'threats to executive branch officials' instead of the much more frequent occurrence of threats by executive branch officials," he continued.

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