Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba delivered a fiery speech Monday outside a New York courthouse, blasting Judge Arthur Engoron, who placed a gag order on her client, and state Attorney General Letitia James.
Habba raged at James for allegedly calling Trump “a liar” inside the courtroom earlier Monday. James brought the civil suit against Trump and his three oldest children in Sept. 2022 seeking $250 million in damages over accusations that the Trump family manipulated asset values to benefit their real estate business.
According to Habba, James said she was “not here to hear what [Trump] has to say.”
“Then why exactly am I being paid as an attorney and why exactly are taxpayer dollars being used in this courtroom?” Habba demanded in her statement to media. “The answer is very clear. Because Ms. James wants to stand right here just like she did this morning and call my client a liar, call the company fraudulent and make a name for herself. She said this morning that the numbers don’t lie, and they won’t lie in this case. Well Ms. James, I have a message for you. The numbers didn’t lie when you ran for governor, and that’s why you dropped out. And the numbers don’t lie when President Trump runs for office in 2024, and those numbers are loud and clear.”
James briefly ran in New York’s 2021 Democratic gubernatorial primary, but dropped out after failing to gain traction against incumbent Kathy Hochul. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday shows Trump leading President Joe Biden 48-44 nationwide and by between three and 10 points in five out of six key swing states.
“This country is falling apart, and if we don’t stop corruption in courtrooms where attorneys are gagged, where attorneys are not allowed to say what they need to say to protect their clients’ interests,” Habba continued. “It doesn’t matter what your politics are. Everyone has a right in this country to get up and put a defense. I don’t care who you are. You have a right to hire a lawyer who can put objections on the record. You have a right to hire a lawyer who can stand up and say something when they see something wrong.”
Habba went on to say that she was “yelled at” during the hearing at that the “unhinged” Judge Engoron “slammed a table.” She described the case as “a demise of [the] American judicial system and democracy.” (RELATED: ‘You Used To Love Trump’: Attorney Alina Habba Pushes Back At Steve Doocy’s Confrontation About Georgia Indictment)
Engoron expanded the gag order against Trump on Friday to apply to Habba and his other two attorneys, Christopher Kise and Clifford Robert. The former president has been fined $5,000 and $10,000 on two separate occasions for allegedly violating his gag order.
“Ms. James came out this morning and said that she knew Mr. Trump — and she always calls him Mr. Trump because it kills her that he was the president — but the 45th president of this country, one of the best presidents we’ve had, has built a great company,” Habba told reporters outside the courthouse. “It’s worth a ton more than that statement of financial condition, and she doesn’t know how to get out of it because her politics won’t allow her.
She calls him a ‘bully.’ She says he’s going to bring out racial slurs, he’s going to say things today and taunt her. Well, Ms. James, you taunted him! Before you came into office, before you saw one record of a statement of financial condition, you taunted him. You said his administration was ‘too male and too pale.’ Those are her words,” Habba added, referring to remarks James made in 2017 at a rally protesting then-President Trump’s immigration policies.