In an article labeled “Trump’s dumbest lawyer throws a fit after judge gives her the boot,” New Republic writer Edith Olmsted says New Jersey AG appointee Alina Habba is not taking her second dismissal well.
Olmsted reports that New Jersey federal judges ousted Habba earlier this year, refusing to vote to extend her 120-day appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey. But the Trump administration found a loophole to bypass the Senate and judges by ordering U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi to fire the first assistant U.S. attorney approved to replace Habba. Trump then appointed Habba to the first assistant position.
Earlier this week, however, another federal judge ruled that Habba had been illegally serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey since the beginning of July 1, and he blocked her office from prosecuting two criminal cases in which defendants challenged her appointment.
Habba, who was Trump’s personal attorney in a defamation case involving writer E. Jean Carroll — which he lost — claimed the judges opposing her are set against her because they are “Obama and Biden appointed.”
“I am the pick of the president. I am the pick of Pam Bondi, our attorney general, and I will serve this country like I have for the last several years in any capacity,” Habba said. “… It’s disturbing what we’re seeing. It’s not surprising, but it’s disturbing. They think they have a voice for five minutes, they try to be activists. And Pam Bondi called it like it is: The attorney general said it today: We will not fall to rogue judges.”
“We will not fall to people trying to be political when they should just be doing their job: respecting the president,” Habba added.
Olmsted pointed out, however, that “a judge’s job is to uphold the law, not bend to the president’s every whim. “
E. Jean Carroll claims she watched Habba and Trump interact in court during her defamation case and said Habba “didn’t know the first thing about law.”
“Not the first thing. Couldn’t do it,” Carroll told columnist Jen Rubin, “but she did what Donald Trump told her to do. I could hear almost everything he was saying to her. He belittled her. He grumbled. He actually hissed, spit, moaned and groaned to her. ‘Stand up, stand up, stand up!’ he kept telling her. She didn’t know why she was standing up, but she would stand up and defend the man as brilliantly as she could.”
Read the New Republic report at this link.