Trump attorney Alina Habba's role on former President Donald Trump's legal team is shifting from his civil trial in the fall for his current criminal trial in New York City.
The Manhattan trial that began Monday pertains to charges filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against Trump, marking the first-ever criminal trial against a former U.S. president. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from hush money paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The former president has pleaded not guilty while continually maintaining that the case is a political witch hunt and election interference.
Habba, who represented Trump as lead attorney in the E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit, is still among the leading voices for the former president, but this time she's taking her megaphone outside the courtroom.
Introduced as Trump's "legal spokesperson," Habba told The Benny Show, a politically conservative podcast, on Monday that she couldn't represent Trump in his criminal case because she didn't practice that type of law, but that her absence in court gave her the opportunity to get his message out through other platforms.
"Obviously, you know, being a type A person, I wish I was a criminal attorney but I'm not," Habba said. "But the great news is that, then I can do this and let everybody know what is actually happening."
"I plan, for the next six weeks, to truly just be spitting the truth and giving people facts they may not be hearing while he's in court," she added.
Speaking to podcaster Benny Johnson, Habba called the trial proceedings in Manhattan the "ultimate sham of a case" and suggested that the charges were politically motivated against Trump because he is the presumptive Republican nominee. She also said that he was "not wrong" in comparing himself to former South African President Nelson Mandela, describing Trump as a "victim of political persecution."
Trump is being represented in the New York criminal matter by attorneys Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles and Emil Bove. Blanche is also representing Trump in his two federal criminal cases in Florida and D.C.
The trial began this week, with jury selection starting on Monday. Much of the morning was spent addressing a series of pretrial motions on what evidence was admissible during trial. At the time that proceedings broke for lunch, no prospective jurors had been called into the room yet.
During the interview, Habba said she's received an outpouring of support for her role on Trump's team.
"Never once have I had somebody not come up to me and give me nothing but support, thank me for fighting for the country with the president, thank me for what I'm doing," she told Johnson.
Habba also represented Trump in the federal civil lawsuit filed by former Trump fixer Michael Cohen as well as the Florida lawsuit that Trump filed against Hillary Clinton and dozens of former Justice Department and FBI officials.
Habba argued on Monday that "times were changing" in Trump's favor, pointing to his recent stop at a Chick-fil-A in Georgia, during which the former president was warmly greeted by a Black audience.
"The reality of the situation is we're in a very troubling time as a country," she said. "I think that's why the growth, that's why you see these Pennsylvania rallies, people coming out on a Saturday night and instead of going to dinner with their friends, they would rather go to a rally and feel confident that this country is not going to completely fall apart for their children and grandchildren."
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
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