By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he is appointing his former lawyer Alina Habba, who was previously sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit, to serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
Habba represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room.
She also represented Trump in a New York civil fraud case brought by the state’s attorney general Letitia James over his real estate company’s business practices.
A judge in the case found him liable and ordered him to pay $454 million. Trump has appealed the ruling.
“There is corruption. There is injustice. There is a heavy amount of crime right in Cory Booker’s backyard and right under Governor Murphy,” Habba told reporters on Monday, referring to New Jersey Democratic U.S. Senator Cory Booker and New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, after her appointment was made.
Habba added that she looks forward to “going after the people we should be going after – not the people that are falsely accused,” but declined to elaborate further.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1 million for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump’s reputation in the investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trump and Habba are appealing that ruling.
Habba is the latest in a string of Trump’s former attorneys to be appointed to key roles in the Justice Department.
Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Kendra Wharton, three of his defense attorneys, are currently serving as Deputy Attorney General, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and Associate Deputy Attorney General, respectively.
Trump’s pick to serve as solicitor general, John Sauer, represented Trump before the U.S. Supreme Court in the presidential immunity case, while Attorney General Pam Bondi previously represented him during his 2019 impeachment trial.
(Reporting by Sarah N. LynchEditing by Bill Berkrot)
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