Alina Habba, former President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman and one of his attorneys, shredded the legal process in Manhattan and New York state for continuing to prosecute her client and putting unprecedented restraints on his ability to defend himself against outside attacks. In particular, she railed at Judge Juan Merchan after he threatened to jail her client on Monday after fining him for what he claimed was a tenth violation of his highly restrictive gag order.
On Monday, Merchan, a known donor to Democratic candidates, cited new examples of Trump violating the order after he fined the 45th president $9,000 last week for similar violations. “Merchan warned Trump that continued violations of the order could result in incarceration—a threat he made again on Monday after fining him the maximum of $1,000 for the most recent violation,” NBC News reported.
“It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent,” Merchan said during early proceedings on Monday. “The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for you,” he continued, adding that taking that step would be “disruptive to the proceedings.”
Merchan nevertheless warned Trump that “his continued willful violations of this court’s orders threaten the administration of justice and constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.” Merchan ordered the removal of the offending statement from Trump’s Truth Social account by 2:15 p.m. on Monday.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Habba discussed the implications of potentially jailing a former president, who is currently ahead of his rival, President Joe Biden, in the national average of polls according to RealClearPolitics. “Sounds like the judge is serious, Alina. And it sounds like the double standard has gotten worse,” Hannity said as he brought in Habba.
“It has. It has, Sean. There’s no other way of saying it. We have seen it time and time again, as you’re seeing with the comments that you’ve made,” she began. “We’ve got witnesses that are allowed to talk and go on MSNBC or MSDNC, as my client likes to call it, CNN and talk about my client talk about this case. But for some reason he can’t talk. That doesn’t make any sense.
“And then you layer that with a judge who has clear ambitions and political motivations. He’s threatening to throw a former president. And as he acknowledged, most importantly, today in the courtroom while I was there, this is probably going to be the future president,” Habba said.
“And for somebody who’s left wing, to say that was shocking. But he did, and he recognized it and then threatened to put him in jail for speaking,” she added. “He didn’t even speak, frankly, Sean. He reposted things that other people said. And that in itself he called contempt.
“We are looking at a serious dual system of justice. We are in a state of crisis when it comes to our judicial system! This is election interference so that he cannot campaign because Biden cannot win if he doesn’t hold him in court,” she concluded.
Hannity then responded: “Yeah. Pretty amazing. Alina, we’re watching this all unfold before our eyes. I feel like we’re living in a third-world country, and this is a kangaroo court. Sad times for our country. We’ll be watching closely in the days to come.”
WATCH:
Trump spokeswoman and attorney Alina Habba: "We are looking at a serious dual system of justice. We are in a state of crisis when it comes to our judicial system." pic.twitter.com/smcXUcEh1x
— USA Features Media (@UsaFeatures) May 8, 2024
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