'Sit down!' Judge shouts at Alina Habba as she's unable to control Trump on the stand

'Sit down!' Judge shouts at Alina Habba as she's unable to control Trump on the stand
Trump attorney Alina Habba (Screen cap via Fox News)

Trump attorney Alina Habba was scolded by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Monday after she could not control Donald Trump on the stand.

Throughout his Monday testimony, Trump avoided answering questions. Instead, he attacked the judge and prosecutors.

"I beseech you to control him. If you can't, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference," Engoron said.

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"The burden is on the AG to ask better questions," Habba said.

"We are not here to hear what he has to say. We are here to listen to him answer questions." Engoron said.

Moments later, Habba became more aggressive.

"Yes, you are here to listen to what he has to say," she told the judge.

"Sit down!" Engoron shouted, reportedly losing his temper.

"This is a very unfair trial," Trump quipped into the microphone.

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Three judges this week slammed President Donald Trump's Justice Department for keeping Lindsey Halligan's name on court documents.

A district court judge and two magistrate judges in Alexandria, Virginia, said in an open court to prosecutors that they didn't think Halligan's name should be on any of the new criminal case filings, including guilty plea documents or indictments, following a decision last week that stated she is not the U.S. attorney, CNN reported.

Magistrate William Fitzpatrick said at a criminal hearing this week that filing criminal charging papers “under Ms. Halligan’s name” was “simply not acceptable,” according to a transcript obtained by the outlet.

Removing her name shouldn't be complicated, Miles Taylor, former Trump administration official and founder of defiance.org, told CNN anchor Boris Sanchez on Friday. He added that the cases are most likely to be thrown out by these judges and that "...there's almost no other conclusion you can come to here other than the U.S. Department of Justice has decided to thumb their noses at the courts. And I got to be honest with you, put everything else aside about the controversies here, I am not sure it's the best strategy to go win cases to off federal judges, but that is what they are doing here."

A judge two weeks ago said that Halligan was never officially appointed to her position.

"It's not a matter of interpretation. This is black and white. And so the Trump Justice Department has made a decision. They're going to pretend that was never said," Taylor said. "This is the type of thing, Boris, folks have been worried about. Is the administration just starting to defy the orders of the courts? Now, folks may think this is a small one because they're defying the order of a court about the appointment of one person to a job. But that's a slippery slope. And my fear is it leads to other defiance of court orders."

And that wasn't his only concern.

"But the problem here, Boris, is still that the process is the punishment," Taylor said. "So if the president's loyalists, his hardcore political loyalists, are put in these jobs to bring obvious revenge prosecutions, then they are still able to upend these people's lives, blacklist them, force them to spend money on lawyers, force them to spend time in court. They can destroy people's lives. Before you even get to the point where a judge says, 'Hey, we told you guys this person wasn't lawfully appointed, we're throwing this case out.' That's a big deal. And I know that this Justice Department thinks they can still do that."

He specifically cited the Letitia James case.

"And look, I think that what you just saw with Letitia James is going to be another forcing function is we've got a person that's accused of breaking the law here, but who apparently isn't breaking the law," Taylor said. "Letitia James, it looks to me personally more like it's people at the Justice Department breaking the law. And here's what I mean by that, Boris. We all see what's happening here with these cases. To me, these are very obvious revenge prosecutions."

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A health expert Friday warned that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made a dangerous error after dropping its recommendation that newborns get the hepatitis B vaccine.

Former CDC director Tom Frieden criticized the body, and told CNN that he was hopeful that health leaders, including pediatricians, OBGYNs, nurses and other specialists, will continue to administer that vaccine — which has been part of the universal recommendation for children's vaccine schedule. He urged that experts "ignore what this hand-picked, unscientific group of people" have done.

"This is a big mistake that would endanger American children. Don't mess with success," Frieden said. "The universal recommendation, since it's been applied, has not resulted in any significant harm to children."

A CDC panel and agency led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Friday it would end its recommendation for the vaccine, which started in the early 1990s.

"It has prevented thousands, maybe millions of children from being infected," Frieden added. "And let me be very clear, hepatitis B is a serious infection. And it's not only spread from the mother. That's why universal birth dose is the standard of care."

The CDC has planned to further discuss the vaccine schedule as a whole.

"This is basically infusing fiction-based rather than fact-based recommendations into the protection of our children... And what I hope will happen is that insurers, states, cities, obstetricians, pediatricians will look at this and say there is no scientific credibility to this recommendation. It's a violation of all of the basic principles of effective protection. Every vaccine is given with informed consent," Frieden said.

A federal grand jury this week has turned down a Justice Department bid to reindict New York Attorney General Letitia James, a perceived political adversary of President Donald Trump.

The failure to make a second attempt at indicting James occurred about two weeks after a judge tossed out a similar mortgage fraud case against James because the prosecution by Trump appointee and real estate lawyer Lindsey Halligan was deemed unlawful, National Review's senior editor Andrew C. McCarthy noted Friday.

"While the case against James should never have been brought in the first place, the grand jury’s no true bill is not necessarily the end of the matter," McCarthy wrote. "The Constitution’s double-jeopardy safeguard protects a person from being tried multiple times on the same charges, not from being charged multiple times. Consequently, Thursday’s filing of a no true bill does not bar the Trump DOJ from trying to convince another grand jury to indict."

James has argued that the president's attacks on her are personal — a result of her fraud case against Trump. And it appears she was right, McCarthy added.

"As is typical of lawfare in Trump’s second term as president, the allegations against James have nothing to do with the abuse of power that drew the president’s ire," McCarthy wrote.

It could be time for the administration and Attorney General Pam Bondi to end their attack on one of Trump's nemeses.

"This is a humiliating development nevertheless for Attorney General Bondi and her department. She should try to persuade her headstrong boss that enough is enough. But the rest of us ought not hold our breath," McCarthy wrote.

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