Thank You, Alina! — xoxo, Very Online Lawyers

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Alina Habba (headshot from Habba Madaio LLP)

Back in the pre-Musk days, Twitter was a glorious, filthy sewer that we all complained about constantly. Journalists, politicians, and normies, all in one room shouting at each other! Heaven.

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Law Twitter was legit amazing. Where else could guys like George Conway and Ken White become media stars? All day long we would poke each other with legal news. Didja see the latest Trump filing? I got the hookup! Sure, it was a productivity killer, but it also tended to surface relevant subject matter experts to give us the information we needed to understand a story. God bless that Delaware Chancery guy!

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Little did we know at the time that a memelord manchild would turn our home into the world’s most expensive weed joke, and then smoke his $44 billion blunt just to light up the faces of his racist buddies with its faint glow.

Now all we have left is our non-existent attention spans and a longing for the good old days of 2021. Yeah, we’ve got the Bluesky nerd prom, and the airbrushed, airless cheer of Threads. But it’s not the same. Nothing will ever be the same.

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And yet in our hour of darkness, an unlikely hero arises to bring us hope. Perhaps the unlikeliest hero of all. And perhaps it’s more accurate to say that she stumbles, rather than rises.

Enter Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s sparklemagic lawyer, who has gotten all the online attorneys back together again by making an absolute ass of herself in the second E. Jean Carroll trial. Although we did have to rely on Twitter, since no one in the SDNY courtroom is posting live on Threads or Sky. Damn you, Elon! And bless you Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press.

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The trial opened with Habba renewing her request for a postponement so that Trump could hit the campaign trail, err, ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF HIS BELOVED MOTHER-IN-LAW.

Habba: "I don't like to be spoken to that way, your honor." She continued to ask for an adjournment, at which point Kaplan cut her off again:

"It’s denied. Sit down."

— erica orden (@eorden) January 17, 2024

This was after Habba got caught lying when she said that Trump would be “traveling” to be with family on Wednesday, instead of at a campaign rally in New Hampshire.

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As her client muttered insults about Carroll and dared the judge to throw him out of the courtroom, Habba showed off her legal chops.

Soon all the old law Twitter peeps were in on the action.

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Bluesky post

She objected to more or less every question on direct examination. And so did her co-counsel Mike Madaio.

Bluesky Post

She repeatedly tried to introduce evidence during direct examination.

Bluesky Post

At one point, Habba moved for a mistrial because Carroll had deleted some of the death threats against her in the days after Trump first defamed her.

Habba: Ms. Carroll, are you aware it is illegal to delete evidence?
Carroll's lawyer: Objection
Habba: I move for a mistrial, evidence has been deleted
Judge Kaplan: Denied and the jury will disregard everything Ms. Habba just said

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 17, 2024

Incompetence? General cussedness? Both?

Bluesky Post

Judge Kaplan seems super impressed.

Threads post

Bet the jury is real impressed, too.

Bluesky post

It was not a credit to the profession. But it was a service to the profession, since we were all united again in peals of horrified laughter.

So thanks for that, Alina!

Carroll v. Trump I [Docket via Court Listener]
Carroll v. Trump II [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes the Law and Chaos substack and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

Topics

Alina Habba, Donald Trump, Government, Twitter