‘President Trump Doesn’t Cower’: Trump Lawyer Alina Habba Had Insisted He Would Testify Today – Forbes
Alina Habba, former President Trump’s attorney representing him in the civil fraud trial taking place in New York, spent the weekend insisting her client would take the stand to testify again—only for the former president himself to contradict her on Sunday night.
Donald Trump now won’t testify in his civil fraud trial in New York, despite Habba’s repeated … [+]
Speaking to the press after the day’s proceedings on Friday, Habba said her client was “not afraid” and was preparing to testify in his own defense next week: “people who are afraid cower, President Trump doesn’t cower.”
“He is so firmly against what is happening in this court, and so firmly for the old America that we know—not this America—that he will take that stand on Monday,” Habba insisted.
In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Habba said she “discouraged” Trump from testifying while he was still under a gag order, but also said the former president planned to “take the stand regardless.”
In an abrupt reversal, Trump announced on Sunday in a post on Truth Social he would not testify again because he had “nothing more to say.”
In November, Judge Arthur Engoron placed Habba under a gag order after her “repeated, inappropriate remarks” about his law clerk Allison Greenfield, echoing the statements that the former president made that prompted the first gag order.
Habba, a managing partner at the small New Jersey firm Habba Madaio & Associates, was hired by Trump in 2021 to represent him at the civil fraud trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office. Habba has since distinguished herself for filing doomed lawsuits against Trump’s targets. Shortly after she was hired, she filed a $100 million lawsuit against the New York Times and the former president’s niece Mary Trump for publishing his tax returns in 2018. The lawsuit was thrown out in May. In January, a judge ordered Trump and Habba to pay over $937,000 to Hilary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and former FBI Director James Comey for filing a frivolous lawsuit alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to harm his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has since appealed this decision. Habba has been paid over $3.5 million in legal fees from political donations to Trump’s Save America PAC, the Associated Press reported.
Trump has gone through several lawyers since his loss in the 2020 election, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was cut from the former president’s legal team after representing him in several lawsuits attempting to overturn the results of the election. At least five have also quit or recused themselves in the past year. Evan Corcoran, an attorney who represented the former president in the federal case involving the mishandling of classified documents, recused himself in April after he testified before a grand jury. Corcoran is still representing Trump in other cases, including the federal conspiracy charges related to the January 6 Capitol riot. Tim Parlatore, an attorney representing him in the documents case, resigned in May, citing personal reasons. John Rowley, another attorney working on the documents case and the January 6 case, left in June. Jim Trusty resigned just one week later, citing “irreconcilable differences” with the former president. All three attorneys demanded that another Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, recuse himself in the documents case, the Washington Post reported.