Did Donald Trump just dump Alina Habba?
Last night Donald Trump announced on social media that he and his team were talking with various law firms about the possibility of appealing the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll trial. At the time, I wrote that this sounded like Trump was perhaps dumping Alina Habba from the case. Now it turns out I’m not the only one who’s interpreted it this way.
Various media outlets and numerous observers on social media have read Trump’s post the same way that I did: that if he does appeal, he won’t be using Habba for the appeal. This isn’t surprising in the sense that she came off as massively inept in the Carroll trial. Then again, Trump doesn’t generally use competence as a factor when he’s picking his people.
We’ll see where this goes. Trump was previously using Habba as his “stand outside the courthouse and spew propaganda to the media during the trial” attorney, before he elevated her for the second Carroll trial. So even if he’s replacing her in the Carroll trial, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll fire her entirely. Perhaps she’ll just be back to her Trump carnival barker role. Not that she was any good at that either.
