Alina Habba Scolded on 'Evidence 101' During Court Showdown

Alina Habba, the lawyer representing Donald Trump in his E. Jean Carroll damages trial, was scolded by the judge during a court session on Thursday.

Habba, who previously worked in real estate law before becoming part of Trump's legal team, is representing the Republican in the second defamation trial brought against him by Carroll. In May 2023, the journalist was awarded $5 million in damages after a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former Elle columnist. The former president has denied sexually assaulting Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in the 1990s.

Carroll's lawyers are seeking another $10 million in compensatory damages and "substantially more" after the former president continued to deny the accusations that he assaulted her, claiming he had no idea who she is and that Carroll was not his "type." In May, Trump called Carroll's account "fake" and labeled her a "whack job" during a CNN town hall broadcast. In early September, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Trump's comments against Carroll were defamatory.

Commentators have criticized Habba for her court performance since the trial started, accusing her of making mistakes.

One such apparent blunder occurred on Thursday when she was hit by an objection after attempting to question Carroll about her income from her Substack blog.

"Ms. Habba, this is Evidence 101," Kaplan told Habba.

Carroll's attorneys then had the next ten objections sustained as Habba tried to ask questions.

"Did you not hear me?" Kaplan asked Habba when she talked over one sustained objection.

Newsweek has contacted Habba by email to comment on this story.

Habba appeared to make a mistake on Wednesday when referring to documents that had not been put into evidence. Kaplan ordered a recess in proceedings so that she might "refresh" her memory on how to.

"No, we are not going to read out loud a document not yet in evidence," he said. "We are going to take a break here and you're going to refresh your memory about how you get a document into evidence."

She also had a tense exchange with Kaplan when she asked for an adjournment of the trial so that Trump could attend his mother-in-law's funeral. Kaplan had previously denied that request.

Writing in her Substack newsletter January 17, Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama, said Habba opened Trump up to "heavy damages," with her courtroom arguments.

"A more skillful lawyer than Alina Habba might have avoided reminding the jury any more than absolutely necessary that her client sexually assaulted the plaintiff," she wrote. "But by putting Carroll on trial and suggesting she is the one at fault here—money hungry, attention hungry—she's given this jury a path forward to impose heavy damages on her client.

"How much is enough to keep Trump from doing it again? Five million dollars wasn't enough to keep him from defaming Carroll immediately after the first judgment. The prospect of this trial only emboldened him. This jury will be charged with protecting Carroll, and with both Trump and his lawyer unrepentant, that could turn out to be a very high number."

A Newsweek analysis of Federal Election Commission records found that between February 2022 and June 2023, Habba's firm was paid millions by Trump's political donors to defend him in court. New Jersey law firm, Habba Madaio & Associates LLP, received $3,586,350 from Save America and Make America Great Again, political action committees that back Trump.