‘This Is a Bogus Motion by the Trump Team’: Elie Honig Pillories Alina Habba’s ‘Self-Defeating’ Filing
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig had some pointed words regarding a motion filed by Alina Habba in Donald Trump’s defamation case.
Last year, a jury found the former president liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s. Trump has verbally attacked Carroll repeatedly, prompting her to successfully sue him for defamation. On Friday, a jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages. Trump is appealing the verdict.
Habba filed a letter in federal court in Manhattan on Monday claiming that the judge who presided over the case once had a working relationship with Carroll’s lawyer.
Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation) worked at the same law firm – Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison at the same time in the early 1990s before Lewis Kaplan was appointed to the federal bench. Habba claimed that this information is “particularly concerning” and claimed the judge was “overtly hostile” to Trump.
Honig addressed the letter on Monday’s edition of The Source.
“In this filing, they’re accusing the judge, Judge Kaplan here, and her attorney is Roberta Kaplan, of failing to report a relationship with Roberta Kaplan, saying they worked together in the 1990s,” Kaitlan Collins noted. “And Roberta Kaplan, I should note in a statement to CNN, is denying that there is a conflict. How does this get handled?”
Honig, who noted there is no relation between the Kaplans, panned the move.
“This is a bogus motion by the Trump team. There’s nothing there,” he replied. “Every judge in that courthouse knows, socializes with, has worked with, sometimes maybe mentored, dozens, hundreds of attorneys in this city. I used to practice in that courthouse in front of judges who used to be my colleagues, my supervisors. If anything, they were tougher on me as a result of it. That is not enough for a conflict of interest.”
He then explained another issue with the filing.
“It’s self-defeating because Trump’s team cites this rule of ethics that says, ‘Well, it could be a conflict of interest if the judge worked with the attorney on this matter or while the attorney was working on this matter.’ The relationship they’re talking about was a law firm, professional relationship that goes back 30 years. Judge Kaplan’s been on the bench for 30 years. They have their appeal issues. This ain’t one of them.”
Watch above via CNN.
