Politics - News Analysis

It Appears Trump Is Throwing Alina Habba Under the Bus Just Like He Did With His Other Lawyers

Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba may find this a bit concerning. As the Daily Beast noted, Donald Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf club coughed up $82,500 to settle a lawsuit alleging it had tricked a sexually harassed waitress by convincing her to accept an unfair hush money deal, the former waitress’s lawyer said. But Habba was left out of the contract, and this means she can, in fact, get sued.

Habba has been at the helm of Trump’s legal problems, and she’s even had to settle one legal problem of her own. She faced a discrimination lawsuit by her former legal secretary. Now, however, she faces the wrath of Alice Bianco, the waitress in question at the golf club, which is Trump’s summer abode.

Habba has been a regular at Bedminster, and Bianco feels betrayed by her because, according to her lawsuit, Habba acted like the concerned friend, giving her legal advice on how to address the alleged sexual harassment by a supervisor—only to shatter the relationship by “fraudulently inducing” her to “quickly agree to unconscionable and illegal terms.”

Habba used the alleged ploy to gain leverage to arrange a hush-money deal to gain favor with the former president, giving her a stepping stone into his inner circle.

Less than a month after engineering the August 2021 hush money deal, Habba soon became the former president’s lead attorney defending him from a sexual assault defamation case brought by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos. The case wound up being dropped.

But Bianco has ginned up her game and has hired an employment lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, and has sued the club to scupper the agreement. And the former waitress brought some pretty damning evidence, in the form of text exchanges between her and a number she’s identified as Habba’s, Above The Law reports.

Bedminster settled the lawsuit earlier this month, returning (for the most part) the parties to where they were prior to the settlement, with the club conceding that Bianco can keep the settlement money, voiding the release to give Bianco the chance to bring a proper lawsuit regarding the original sexual harassment claim, and covering her legal fees for the settlement challenge. For her part, Bianco “released the club from the limited claim of fraudulent inducement to buy into the bogus settlement,” writes Above The Law’s Joe Patrice.

But guess who isn’t released from that fraud claim? Here’s a hint:

“The parties agree that Alina Habba is not a party to this release.”

This, Patrice writes, means that Habba was intentionally cut out of the deal, and therefore Bianco can sue her directly “for the exact same issues.”

And Smith, Bianco’s lawyer said the line was added to ensure Habba isn’t off the hook.

“My client is certainly considering suing her for fraud,” Smith said last week. She added she is already in communication with Habba’s attorney.

Well, this is certainly a sticky wicket for Habba. The club isn’t obligated to help settle this on her behalf, Patrice notes. The club’s duty is…to protect the club. It doesn’t have to do diddly for a two-bit attorney who thinks it’s better to be pretty rather than smart.

“On the other hand, there was a zero percent chance that anyone reading that clause would take away any interpretation other than the club washing its hands of Habba like Pontius Pilate with severe OCD,” Patrice writes.

“So the Trump club left its boss in the awkward position of having thrown his very public-facing attorney under the bus as potentially liable for fraud.”

So this could turn out to be additional fun for Habba, who is already partly on the hook for nearly a cool million in sanctions. And Trump doesn’t mind throwing people under the bus. He’s done it to his own daughter after all.

How is all this going to turn out? All I can say is “Stay tuned.”

meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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