Alina Habba’s lost cause

| 1:25 am EST January 27, 2024
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In previous trials, Donald Trump had merely been using Alina Habba as his “stand outside the courthouse and say partisan things to the TV cameras” lawyer, not his actual courtroom lawyer. She wasn’t even good at that. But in a testament to his ongoing cognitive collapse, Trump decided that for his second E. Jean Carroll trial, Habba should be his actual lawyer, running point in the courtroom.

The results spoke for themselves. Habba didn’t appear to understand how to introduce evidence, when to stand, what she was allowed to say, and when she was supposed to shut up. At times the judge in the case tried to help her along. But by the end of it, Habba was screwing up so badly that the judge ultimately threatened to toss her behind bars if she kept stepping out of bounds.

And of course the outcome of the trial spoke for itself as well: an $83.3 million judgment against Donald Trump. Here’s the thing, though. Habba’s performance, which was equal parts offputting and inept, may have caused the damages to be even higher than they otherwise ldld have been. But you can look back now and see that Trump was going to lose this trial badly no matter what. Put a “normal” defense attorney on this case, and the judgment against Trump might have been, what, $70 million? For all we know, it would have been the same $83.3 million no matter what. This was a lost cause for Trump either way.

That’s because this ultimately wasn’t about Alina Habba. She was utterly terrible, in a way that was laughable and sad at the same time. But the jury didn’t hand down these kinds of massive damages because of Trump’s crappy attorney. They handed down these damages because of Trump himself. Trump raped this woman. Trump lied about her. Trump kept attacking E. Jean Carroll, endlessly, even after the jury in the first trial cracked down on him for it.

We’ll see if Trump ends up blaming Habba for his loss, in the way that he’s thrown so many of his other attorneys under the bus. But in the end, Trump only has himself to blame. He put himself in this situation. No attorney was going to get him out of it. And that’s just as true for his upcoming criminal trials.