How Do New Jersey Judges Solve A Problem Like Alina (Habba)?
Judges picked her replacement, whom Pam Bondi just fired.
President Donald J. Trump’s first order of business after somehow being elected president of the United States was to shove his personal lawyers, his fixers and lackeys, anywhere and everywhere they might go. His shouty porn peener payoff lawyer Todd Blanche is his deputy attorney general AND (acting) Librarian of Congress, and Blanche’s quieter, creepier law partner Emil Bove got to be acting US deputy attorney general and might even get to be a federal judge! Tim Parlatore, also Pete Hegseth’s lawyer, is now somehow personal lawyering for Hegseth in the Defense Department. Any lawyer of Trump’s who didn’t quit, get themselves arrested or get disbarred during or after his last term gets a reward!
And until yesterday, Alina Habba was the (acting) US Attorney for the District of New Jersey. But her 120-day tenure was expiring, and even though she’d hung pictures of herself all over the office, the Senate still hadn’t confirmed her. So, like the law says they can do, a panel of New Jersey judges appointed her successor, one Desiree L. Grace, who is many times more qualified than Habba, and was a prosecutor for nearly a decade. Habba has never prosecuted a single case before! And then, within hours, Pam Bondi fired Grace, by announcing her firing on X, of course.
Grace is a registered Republican, and the judge who signed the order appointing Grace was appointed by George W. Bush. But according to the laws of propaganda, anything anybody does that Trump does not like is “political,” while anything Trump does is directly from the lips of God.
Habba’s qualifications, besides being a lawyer for her husband’s parking garage company, are simping and hollering for Trump in and out of court, looking pretty, and, of course, trying to fake being smart.
She first made Trump’s acquaintance sidling up to him at his Bedminster Golf Club, Ex-Wife Boneyard, and Omelette Bar, and he hired her to deal with a sexual harassment problem there, which she did in a way that made her subject to an ethics investigation. She sued one of Trump’s 20+ sexual harassment accusers, Summer Zervos, for suing Trump, because her suing Trump hurt Trump’s free speech. (Zervos dropped her suit.) Then Habba tried to help Trump sue the New York Times, but the case was dismissed. She defended Trump in his New York business-fraud trial, and lost. She also can’t slice celery or avocados for shit, and has bitched that judges try to frame lawyers for being stupid. No girl, it’s just you!
She got sued herself for saying racist shit in her own office, including calling Leticia James the N-word, and settled. She and Trump got sanctioned nearly a million bucks for filing a ridiculous lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and 30 other other public officials for pointing out Trump’s many ties to Russia. The judge didn’t mince words on that one!
This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim. Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.
And she defended Trump on the damages part of E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit, and the jury decided Carroll was owed $83.3 million. So much winning!
And after being appointed (acting) US Attorney for New Jersey, she disbanded their Civil Rights Division and did the first political LOCK EM UP-ing for the new regime, federal-crime-charging Rep. LaMonica McIver for ASSAULTING Homeland Security agents who were pushing and shoving her, while she and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka were trying to do their oversight jobs at the local private ICE facility. The facility was refusing to allow any kind of inspections for good reason: It’s so crumbly that four detainees recently escaped by going right through a wall, which was “drywall with a mesh interior.” This is why there are building inspections! Also immigrants in ICE facilities have been dying in custody from a lack of medical care, and there have been reports from all over of torturous conditions like ankle-deep sewage backups in cells, food shortages, and detainees forced to drink out of the toilet.
Baraka and McIver had every right and responsibility to be there and do oversight. And they had even been invited in the front gate, but officials apparently changed their minds about letting them into the building somewhere between the gate and the front door.
Habba withdrew the charges against Baraka, and got an earful from the judge about using arrests as punishment. But McIver was indicted, now faces 17 years in prison, and will go on trial November 10.
So, what is Trump’s next move, here? Sounds like he hopes to try to re-appoint Habba, somehow, and then guess he’ll see everybody in court when he inevitably gets sued? Who knows, nothing like this has ever happened before, because we’ve never had a fascist like Trump in office before!
Guess we and New Jersey are going to find out!
[NBC / Politico / New York Times archive link]
STATES' RIGHTS!!1! Oh, wait...
Deactivate her badge. When someone asks why her badge was deactivated? Dunno. Make it a daily script. Include every former employees badge for some fun searching through the logs.
I don't know why she can't get in. We activated it yesterday... 🤷