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(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

This morning Axios came out with a hot “scoop.” Turns out, Trump’s pals are worried that he has bad lawyers.

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Yeah, don’t faint.

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“Close associates and advisers to Donald Trump tell Axios they’re concerned by his decision to use a relatively inexperienced New Jersey attorney, Alina Habba, in his high-stakes legal fight against New York Attorney General Letitia James,” the outlet intones breathlessly. As if the problem with that case is the lawyer, and not the fact that Trump wants a federal judge to seize jurisdiction from a state court and then order the AG to quit doing her actual job.

“There are real concerns about having a state court tort lawyer come in to represent Donald Trump, not understanding the nuances and issues that surround a former president,” said one concerned friend.

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Look, we’d be the first to make fun of Alina Habba, a relatively unknown civil attorney from New Jersey who was recently chief general counsel for a parking garage company. The “spoiliation” letter  she sent to the Pulitzer committee demanding that it retract prizes for the New York Times and Washington Post was hilarious. And her LOLsuit against Mary Trump and the New York Times demanding $100 million in punitive damages for breach of contract — as if that’s how any of this works! — is a classic for the ages.

But if and when courts toss these lawsuits, it won’t be because of bad lawyering. It’ll be because the claims are patently ridiculous.

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Axios goes to some lengths to explain that “Habba has taken on jobs that Trump advisers say might be rejected out of hand by most high-profile attorneys” because “High-profile lawyers tend to care deeply about whether they win in court — or at least whether they can win in court.” Which presupposes that Donald Trump who has made a career out of litigation as a negotiation tactic, or to bleed his enemies of cash, or simply as an act of revenge, intends to win these cases, rather than use them to gin up publicity and raise cash for his “legal defense.”

In response to whispers that Trump has “fallen prey to inexperienced lawyers who are just telling him what he wants to hear,” Habba herself told Axios, “If you believe former President Donald Trump has fallen prey and is being victimized by someone such as myself, then you do not understand Donald Trump, the Trump Organization or his family very well.”

And she ain’t wrong.

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Because Trump has a whole stable full of lawyers of differing pedigrees whom he deploys in strategic fashion. When he tussles with the House Ways and Means Committee, he sends in the fancy lawyers from Consovoy McCarthy. To fight the release of his records from the National Archives, he taps Kraken alum Jesse Binnall and RNC hand Justin Clark. When he’s tilting at the tech windmills trying to get back on Twitter, Facebook, and Google, he teams up with a motley crew led by Greta van Susteren’s husband John Coale, a personal injury litigator.

These lawsuits range from nervy to preposterous, but no one accuses those lawyers of leading Trump down the garden path. Maybe Axios needs to question why everyone in Trump’s orbit is so concerned about the one female lawyer in the bunch, while blithely ignoring the fifty other white guys on retainer who get their asses kicked on the regular.

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Of course, this would require accepting that Eric Trump, who recently referred to Habba as one of “the best legal, ethical minds,” is somehow not in on the joke.

Eric Trump says Letitia James suing Trump violates the constitution pic.twitter.com/x6R9HAJmMF

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 11, 2022

If you can even believe it.

Scoop: Trump’s friends worry legal pick for N.Y. case lacks experience [Axios]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Topics

Alina Habba, Donald Trump, Government