E. Jean Carroll's lawyers reveal their impression of 'yelling' Trump attorney Alina Habba – Raw Story
Sarah Burris is a long-time veteran of political campaigns, having worked as a fundraiser and media director across the United States. She transitioned into reporting while working for Rock the Vote, Future Majority and Wiretap Magazine, covering the Millennial Generation's perspective during the presidential elections. As a political writer, Burris has had bylines at CNN, Salon.com, BNR, and AlterNet and serves as a senior digital editor for RawStory.com.
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Speaking to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday, E. Jean Carroll was joined by her two attorneys, Roberta Kaplan and Shawn Crowley, who revealed what it was like being in the courtroom with Donald Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba.
Habba has been criticized by legal analysts on cable news and social media for being woefully unprepared to handle the case and navigate courtroom procedure. At several points in the trial, Judge Lewis Kaplan (no relation to Carroll's lawyer) was forced to step in and help Habba phrase her questions appropriately.
Kaplan said that she would leave such observations about Habba to Crowley but noted that it was jarring to hear Habba constantly yelling in court.
"I will say that what you heard just now in that tape of Alina Habbah leaving the court and kind of yelling at the reporters, that's what we heard every single day, multiple times during this trial, but yelling at the judge," said Kaplan. "And it was unbelievably nerve-racking each time it happened, and it happened multiple times every day."
Legal experts said in the second week of the trial that Habba was alienating the jury.
Crowley was civil and refrained from any attacks on Habba, saying only that her job was a difficult one.
"I think that she had a hard job and you could definitely see a difference between her sort of style when he was in the courtroom and when he was not there," Crowley explained. "She was much more disciplined and frankly acted more like a lawyer when he wasn't there."
Carroll said something similar about Trump himself and his behavior in the courtroom. She described the ex-president as "not there" and characterized him as a "walrus, snorting" during the proceedings.
"When he was," present, Crowley continued, "you could hear him telling her when to object, and muttering things, and loudly being frustrated with her. And I think she felt like she had to say things to the judge and to us and sort of put on a performance like you just saw in front of the TV cameras."
Crowley also said that it appears the hefty judgment has quieted Trump's defamation for now.
See the comments from the attorneys below or at the link here.
E. Jean Carroll's lawyers reveal their impression of 'yelling' Trump attorney Alina Habbayoutu.be
Grassroots activists aired their grievances at Republican National Committee leadership at a gathering ahead of the organization's conference in Las Vegas.
The gathering was held Monday at a casino hotel next door to where the RNC will meet later this week, and many GOP activists complained that committee chair Ronna McDaniel has lost their trust and said they're tired of hearing excuses for the party's string of losses, reported Politico.
“We are at war,” one man shouted at the event hosted by the conservative group Turning Point Action. “Where are the tools? Where are all the little things that the left is doing but we don’t?”
Terry Dittrich, chair of the Waukesha County, Wisconsin, GOP, griped that the national party should have already set up year-round voter outreach programs like he sees Democrats doing, and what his county organization has attempted to carry out on their own.
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“The fact of the matter is the same executive committee, the same leadership structure, the same strategic plans, the same ‘victory programs’ are all in place with the same people, and yet we have lost 22 out of 25 statewide races,” Dittrich said. “And so my question would be simple: If you’re in a business and your business lost 22 of 25 accounts that you were after, would you have the same structure continue? Would you have the same people continuing to lead?”
Charlie Kirk, the head of the youth-oriented Turning Point organization, has been a longtime antagonist to McDaniel — his group's summit was labeled “Restoring National Confidence” in a clear shot at the RNC — and he was sharply critical of the national organization in an interview.
“They’re a bunch of losers – they know it, the grassroots knows it, the donors know it,” Kirk said. “They lost in ’18, they lost in ’20, they lost in 2022. We have tried to reach out to them many times, and I’m not going to put up with another culture of losing.”
About two dozen of the RNC's 168 members attended the Turning Point conference, and some of them expressed hopes of mending the rift between the two groups, but other RNC members and many GOP grassroots activists made clear they weren't interested in compromise but were diving deep into the conspiratorial politics embodied by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who took part in the conference.
“I used to be the establishment when I first got started in politics,” said Fanchon Blythe, an RNC committeewoman from Nebraska, where activists are purging their party leadership. “But God awakened me.”
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton has written a new foreword to his 2020 book "The Room Where It Happened" in which he warns readers about what might happen should former President Donald Trump win a second term.
As reported by Axios, the foreword outlines "nightmare scenarios" where Bolton envisions Trump putting his own ego and financial wellbeing over the national interest time and time again.
According to the publication, Bolton fears Trump could "throw Ukraine under the bus to favor Russian President Vladimir Putin; endanger Taiwan's independence and embolden China; reunite with North Korea's Kim Jong-un;" and "seek a bad deal with Iran driven by his desire to prove himself a master negotiator."
Bolton also worries Trump could pull the United States out of NATO and abuse his office to enact revenge against his domestic political opponents.
READ MORE: Big Trump secret about to be revealed
"A mountain of facts demonstrates that Trump is unfit to be President," Bolton argues in the foreword. "Indeed, it is a close contest between Putin and Xi Jinping, who would be happiest to see Trump back in office."
Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller hit back at Bolton in a statement to Axios.
"For someone who professes to have such great disdain for President Trump, 'Book Deal Bolton' sure has found a way to grift off the relationship," he said.
A Republican candidate's leaked comments about Donald Trump has turned a northwest Ohio primary race into a three-way dogfight.
After GOP candidate Craig Riedel's recorded comments about Trump – he called him "arrogant" and criticized his name-calling – were leaked to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, Republican Party officials recruited state Rep. Derek Merrin to prevent MAGA superfan J.R. Majewski from winning the primary to face longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, reported The Daily Beast.
“It’s a bit of a debacle in terms of recruitment, because I think J.R. would have lost head-to-head to either [Merrin or Riedel],” said a GOP source involved in Ohio politics. “But they’ll siphon off too many votes from each other.”
Riedel's comments have alienated the MAGA base, and Merrin carries a ton of baggage from his legislative career, but Majewski badly lost his 2022 race again Kaptur after he was caught significantly overstating his military record – and Republicans pointed to another incident after he notched a surprise win in the GOP primary.
READ MORE: Trumped-up nonsense: Smearing Fani Willis won’t get Donald off the hook in Georgia
Majewski traveled to Washington, D.C., for meetings with party officials after his primary win, and sources told The Daily Beast the political newcomer best known for mowing Trump's face on his lawn visited the Decades nightclub and secured a table with bottle service, and a photo of him at the table later circulated among GOP lawmakers.
The candidate had a placard on his table identifying him as “Congressman J.R. Majewski.”
Republicans were already alarmed by his inexperience and bluster, but that incident was the last straw. “It was just so ridiculous,” said one of the GOP sources.
House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) broke with other members of party leadership and endorsed Merrin last week, but he has a long history with disgraced Ohio state House speaker Larry Householder, who was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for corruption, and he fell short in a bruising fight last year in his own bid for the gavel.
Merrin was so certain he'd win the speakership in January 2023 that he made plans to remodel the chamber and upgrade lawmaker office signs to be “larger and more regal,” but he lost his bid to more moderate Rep. Jason Stephens, although Merrin has since declared himself the rightful leader of state House Republicans and has sued the speaker over control of campaign finance accounts.
Democrats, meanwhile, are watching the "juicy" infighting with delight as Kaptur seeks her 22nd term in office in a district that carried Trump by 3 points in 2020.
“They’ve put themselves in a very difficult position that they’re having a hard time figuring out how to get out of it,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Rusnak. “They trapped themselves.”
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