Alina Habba's Courtroom Conduct Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes

Alina Habba has been mocked on social media for her behavior in court as she represents former President Donald Trump in his E. Jean Carroll trial.

Habba is representing the Republican in the second defamation trial brought against him by Carroll, a journalist. In May 2023, Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages after a jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former Elle columnist. Trump has denied sexually assaulting Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in the 1990s.

Carroll's lawyers are seeking another $10 million in compensatory damages and "substantially more" after the former president continued to deny the accusations that he assaulted her, claiming he had no idea who she is and that Carroll was not his "type." In May, Trump called Carroll's account "fake" and labeled her a "whack job" during a CNN town hall broadcast. In early September, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Trump's comments against Carroll were defamatory.

In court, Habba has made a series of apparent blunders, according to commentators. In one instance, she appeared to make a mistake when referring to documents that had not been put into evidence. Kaplan ordered a recess in proceedings so that she might "refresh" her memory on how to.

"No, we are not going to read out loud a document not yet in evidence," he said. "We are going to take a break here and you're going to refresh your memory about how you get a document into evidence."

She also had a tense exchange with Kaplan when she asked for an adjournment of the trial so that Trump could attend his mother-in-law's funeral. Kaplan had previously denied that request.

Such instances have led to mockery on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Newsweek contacted Habba by email to comment on this story.

X user Betty Bowers wrote: "Donald Trump not paying Alina Habba will be the first time Donald stiffing someone he hired will be justified."

Jon Cooper, a prominent Democratic Party activist with more than 1.2 million Twitter followers wrote: "Good god, Alina Habba is a HORRENDOUSLY BAD attorney."

A different user wrote: "I don't think Alina Habba is having much success at faking being smart."

Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor and frequent Trump critic said: "I'm gonna say you can watch My Cousin Vinny and Legally Blonde back-to-back and you'd be ready to do a better trial than Habba."

Another user named Alex Cole wrote: "Are we sure Alina Habba is really a lawyer? I wouldn't hire this woman to fight a traffic ticket."

Writing in her Substack newsletter January 17, Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama, said Habba opened Trump up to "heavy damages," with her courtroom arguments.

"A more skillful lawyer than Alina Habba might have avoided reminding the jury any more than absolutely necessary that her client sexually assaulted the plaintiff," she wrote. "But by putting Carroll on trial and suggesting she is the one at fault here—money hungry, attention hungry—she's given this jury a path forward to impose heavy damages on her client.

"How much is enough to keep Trump from doing it again? Five million dollars wasn't enough to keep him from defaming Carroll immediately after the first judgment. The prospect of this trial only emboldened him. This jury will be charged with protecting Carroll, and with both Trump and his lawyer unrepentant, that could turn out to be a very high number."