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E. Jean Carroll's lawyer is "not surprised" that Donald Trump may have replaced Alina Habba as his attorney.
Asked if Habba was returning to Trump's legal team when he fights the $83.3 million verdict that a New York City jury has ordered him to pay for defaming Carroll, the latter's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, responded, "I don't know, it's unclear to me. On the appellate part, he said he won't be using her, but that's not surprising."
Last month, Trump suggested that Habba, who was criticized for her courtroom conduct during the trial, may not return to his legal team when he said he was interviewing different law firms to help him appeal the verdict.
"I am in the process, along with my team, of interviewing various law firms to represent me in an Appeal of one of the most ridiculous and unfair Witch Hunts our Country has ever seen," the former president said in a Truth Social post.
Although his remarks suggested he was looking for another attorney to represent him in the appeals process, he may still retain Habba as a lawyer for other legal matters.
Newsweek reached out to Habba via email for comment.
Kaplan said that while she is "not in the business of criticizing other lawyers," Habba's inexperience in the courtroom definitely hurt Trump's case.
"Judge [Lewis] Kaplan [no relation] is a very strict judge and is very formal about how he operates the courtroom and is very strict about the rules of evidence," Kaplan said during a Monday appearance on the podcast On With Kara Swisher.
She continued, "It was painfully clear that Alina Habba—who has not, I think, done many trials, and certainly many trials in federal court before a judge like Judge Kaplan—didn't have enough experience to do simple things like how to get a document into evidence."
Kaplan said it "became very painful" to watch Habba make Trump's case in court, citing the point in the trial when Habba cross-examined Carroll on the stand.
Kaplan recalled: "She really couldn't get any documents in and...at one point [she] said to the judge, 'Judge, will you help me?,' which is a weird thing to say to this judge. And he said something like, 'Well, you just saw Miss Kaplan. She got, like, 90 documents in when she put E. Jean on direct, didn't you watch her?' So it was very awkward and uncomfortable."
Habba and Kaplan sparred throughout the defamation case. Most recently, Kaplan slammed Habba for "utterly baseless" allegations that the judge in the case had been "like her mentor" when they both worked for the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in the 1990s.
Habba told the New York Post the situation was "insane and so incestuous" and tried to argue that their relationship was a conflict of interest in the case.
"From the very start of the recently concluded trial, Donald Trump and Ms. Habba have pushed a false narrative of judicial bias so that they could characterize any jury verdict against Trump as the product of a corrupt system," Kaplan told the judge in response.
"While this strategy has now moved into its post-verdict phase, it is now time for defendants' false and vexatious claims of bias or impropriety to stop," Kaplan added.
Habba proceeded to back off on the claim after Kaplan threatened to pursue sanctions against her.
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About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more