Donald Trump's lawyer Alina Habba vowed vengeance against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron after the former president was ordered to pay $355 million plus interest in penalties for lying about his wealth.
Talking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday, the same day Engoron issued his ruling, Habba said that "the biggest message" she could give is that Engoron and James were "not going to get away with it." Suggesting that the Biden administration had a role in the trial, she said that they were also not going to "get away" with condemning Trump for fraud.
"There is a point, and I want to say something that I don't normally do, we have the order now, I'm free to speak. And let me just say [...]; they will not get away with it. We will come at them, we will come hard and we will literally fight until the truth comes out," she said. "There was nothing wrong. President Trump has done nothing wrong. All he has done is won a campaign and that is scaring them. Because they know when he goes back in November 2024, he is going to clean house, and that is truly the problem," she added.
On Friday, Judge Engoron ordered the former president to pay $355 million for scheming to inflate the value of his assets to ensure more favorable terms from banks and insurers. He also banned Trump from serving as officer or director of any New York-based company for three years, while his eldest sons—Eric and Donald Jr.—are banned for two years. Friday's ruling was in the New York civil fraud case spurred by James' lawsuit against Trump.
Both Engoron and James are Democrats.
Alina Habba: “They will not get away with it. We will come at them; we will come hard, and we will literally fight until the truth comes out…President Trump has done nothing wrong. All he has done is won a campaign and that is scaring them because they know when he goes back in… pic.twitter.com/90G2NBqabw
— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) February 17, 2024
Echoing claims made by Trump for all the legal troubles he's facing, Habba suggested that the case is political and not about "Mar-a-Lago worth," she said, adding that the Florida resort is worth "at least" 1.5 billion. "This is the new form of election interference," Habba said. The New York court concluded that Mar-a-Lago is worth $364 million, stating that Trump's valuation of the property between 2011 and 2021 was fraudulent.
The former president has recently claimed the resort is worth more than $1 billion.
Trump is currently facing a total of 91 felony counts in four different criminal trials and maintains his innocence in all of them. The embattled former president has said he's the victim of a political "witch hunt" against him aimed at weakening him before the November 5 presidential election.
Engoron recently commented on the repeated accusations of being politically motivated to prosecute Trump and the questioning of his impartiality by saying that "that whole approach is getting old."
Newsweek contacted Habba's office and the New York Attorney General's office for comment by email on Monday morning.
Talking with Hannity on Friday, Habba said that she would use "the transcripts, we will use the evidence, we will use the witnesses, the real facts" to prove that Trump "did absolutely nothing wrong" and Engoron's ruling is wrong.
"We will win in the appellate division, I have zero concerns about there," she said.
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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more
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