"Never mind"- A day after hurling bricks at Judge Kaplan, Alina Habba says she was just kidding
Sic transit gloria mundi — but stupidity is eternal
In the internet age, the news cycle is measured in minutes, and fame is fleeting. Alina Habba will inevitably be a footnote, but she is not going gentle into the obscure good night. Lacking the intelligence to make her mark through legal brilliance, she has resorted to petulance. And in her desperate desire to stay in the good graces of her client, she is throwing petards that have hoist only her.
She is not alone in shouldering the blame for the jury’s $83.3 million award to E. Jean Carroll — even a competent lawyer cannot make a silk purse out of Trump’s ear. However, she took the poor cards she was dealt and played them worse than a rational person could imagine.
Left clutching at straws in the aftermath of her legal beatdown, Trump’s vacuous mouthpiece fired off a letter to Judge Kaplan demanding he overturn the verdict. Her rationale? She claimed Judge Lewis Kaplan and E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, had an undisclosed mentor/mentee relationship 30 years ago when they both worked for the same law firm. Her evidence? A New York Post article based on the ‘testimony’ of an anonymous source.
For some reason, Habba decided that impugning a judge’s impartiality was a winning strategy. However, it was no surprise, as she has yet to show any ability to win a case. She stated her case:
“The underlying defamation case tried last year, and the damages trial completed last week, were both litigations in which there were many clashes between Your Honor and defense counsel. We believe, and will argue on appeal, that the Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards Plaintiff’s counsel.”
Roberta Kaplan fired back with her own letter shredding Habba’s claim. And the people in the know speculated that Habba may once again be sent to the penalty box for aggressive dumbassery. Yet, in a surprise move, she may have saved herself by sensing the ice was thin.
Habba may be low-IQ, but she is not no-IQ. It must have dawned on her that she was up a malodorous creek without means of propulsion. Less than 24 hours after she fired her popgun at the legal establishment, she backed down. And channeling her inner Emily Litella, she offered a euphemistic ‘never mind’.
To be precise, she wrote another letter backtracking on her allegations. She started with classic projection, accusing Roberta Kaplan of “making inflammatory and unwarranted accusations.” She ended with a self-serving reinterpretation of her previous letter.
“The purpose of the letter was simply to inquire as to whether there is any merit to a recently published New York Post story which reported on the alleged existence of such a relationship.
Since Ms. Kaplan has now denied that there was ever a mentor-mentee relationship between herself and Your Honor, this issue has seemingly been resolved.”
Nice save, right? Wrong. Like the scorpion on the frog, she could not escape her essential nature. She had to add a footnote saying there were other issues about Judge Kaplan’s conduct, “including potential bias hostility towards defense counsel,” that she would raise in her appeal of the verdict.
I do not know what percent of Habba is an empty pipe channeling Trump’s effluvium and how much of the shtick is her creation. But whatever its source, her output is embarrassing. Alina said she could fake being smart. If she can, she should start — because her performance so far has not been pretty.
Hard to believe she managed to get out of law school 😏 thanks Pitt