Donald Trump lawyer Alina Habba boasted about how she and the former president were fined nearly $1 million for filing lawsuits that a judge condemned as "frivolous," while speaking on stage at a Turning Point USA conference on Sunday.
Appearing at the conservative event in Phoenix, Arizona, Habba told the crowd about a decision handed down by Florida District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks earlier this year after the judge had already thrown out Trump's suits claiming that dozens of defendants had conspired to damage the Republican's chances of winning the 2016 election by pushing his campaign's alleged ties to Russia.
Middlebrooks dismissed the case in September 2022, before sanctioning Trump and Habba in January for their "continuing pattern of misuse of the courts" by filing the lawsuits that the judge said had no legal merit.
Middlebrooks also ordered Trump and Habba to jointly pay nearly $938,000 in legal costs for the 31 defendants in their lawsuits, which include the Democratic National Committee, Trump's 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, and former FBI director James Comey.
Speaking at the Turning Point USA event, Habba proudly stated that she and Trump paid the fine while claiming that the decision from the judge to throw out the lawsuits and sanction her and Trump wasn't widely reported in the media at the time.
Habba also noted that Middlebrooks was nominated to the bench in 1997 by former president Bill Clinton, the husband of Trump's 2016 Democratic election opponent.
"What do you think happened? Nobody's heard of the case, right? Because it's gone. I never met the judge. I never walked into the courtroom. There were probably 50 lawyers representing all of the radical left," Habba said.
"One month, it got dismissed, and me and President Trump got sanctioned a million dollars for going against crooked Hillary."
A person in the crowd could then be heard yelling "What?" to which Habba responds: "You didn't know that, did you? Fake news, folks. They won't report it.
"But guess what? We paid that million and we're going to keep on fighting."
A clip of Habba's remarks was posted on social media, where a number of legal experts questioned why the lawyer would want to openly admit that she had been fined and sanctioned by a judge for abusing the courts.
"This is very strange. Apparently she wants publicity about how unethical a lawyer she is," Mark S. Zaid, a Washington attorney, posted on X, formerly Twitter. "It is incredibly hard to be sanctioned under Rule 11. It actually takes work!"
"Lawyer is sanctioned by a federal judge for bringing a frivolous case and blames the media for...not giving the sanction ruling enough attention," wrote Orin Kerr, a professor at the University of California's Berkeley School of Law, adding that the incident "got a lot of attention," while sharing an NPR link detailing Habba's sanctioning.
Attorney and frequent Trump critic Ron Filipkowski added: "She is literally bragging about how incompetent she is, but claiming that all of her Ls are just politics. MAGA never loses because everything is rigged."
Habba has been contacted for comment via email.
In his 46-page ruling in January, Middlebrooks said that Trump's lawsuit against Clinton and others "should never have been brought" and questioned why Habba chose to work on them.
"Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim," the judge wrote.
Habba is currently representing Trump in his $250 million civil fraud trial, where the former president is accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James of filing fraudulent financial statements that inflated the value of his property and assets for years.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil trial, has already ruled that Trump did commit fraud while filing his financial statements, and the judge will determine the size of the penalty against the former president and his real estate company early next year.
Habba also represented Trump in the sexual battery and defamation lawsuit filed against the former president by E. Jean Carroll. In May, a jury ruled that Trump was liable for sexually abusing the former Elle columnist in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s, then defamed her character while denying the incident took place. Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages.
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About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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