OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Trump attorney and spokeswoman Alina Habba ripped the hypocritical nature of the prosecution against her boss that is evident in his Manhattan hush money trial, even to the point where attorney-client privilege doesn’t appear to matter.
Habba was discussing the testimony of Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who admitted last week to secretly recording a conversation with his then-boss about an alleged hush money payment. These discussions between attorneys and their clients are supposed to be privileged and private, but Cohen’s testimony in court has not yet been challenged.
Habba, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, noted the discrepancy.
“Last time I checked, there’s something called attorney-client privilege. Obviously, you know, that doesn’t stand if you’re going against Donald Trump because none of the rules stand if you’re going against Donald Trump in a political campaign where he is winning and they have no other way to win but to take him down with illegal and politically motivated lawfare,” Habba told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“You said it best, Sean. Hillary Clinton did something far worse, and the [Federal Election Commission] looked at it, they examined it, and what did they do? They gave her a slap on the wrist, she paid, I think, eight grand for hiding the dirty dossier, the Russian hoax against Donald Trump, and nobody cared about anything,” Habba continued.
“She wasn’t dragged into court. Neither was Bill Clinton in the sock drawer case, and the list goes on and on and on. But if you are Donald Trump, you’re going to be gagged unconstitutionally so that you can’t even discuss testimony of people that are calling you a liar, and you can’t defend yourself. Can I tell you, Sean, I have never seen anything worse than what I saw today. I’m not going to get into the testimony of somebody under oath on a witness stand, but I think if you read the news, it speaks for itself,” she added.
WATCH:
Georgetown University law school professor Jonathan Turley, following testimony by Cohen, said that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg may be using the longtime fixer-lawyer to prolong the case and avoid a quick defeat.
Cohen, previously convicted of lying to Congress while facing additional allegations of perjury, appeared in court to testify in the case revolving around a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Ahead of Cohen’s testimony, New York Judge Juan Merchan rejected prosecutors’ plea to present a severance agreement involving former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg as evidence prior to Cohen’s testimony.
“It was really interesting before his testimony to watch this effort to get in the agreement of the accountant. That was such an obvious and dishonest move by the prosecutors,” Turley said, referring to Weisselberg’s severance agreement during a Fox News segment.
“You have to wonder whether this judge is having second thoughts about his failure to stop this case or at least force the prosecution to be clear about it. There is nothing stopping the prosecutor from calling that accountant, so the introduction of that agreement was clearly intended to suggest to the jury that they have some smoking gun evidence, but because of this agreement, they can’t present it. That’s entirely untrue, and so Merchan was right to say I’m not going to let you do that,” Turley continued.
“It goes to how this is a Potemkin village of a case. They are proving stuff not in evidence while leaving suggestions of stuff that is in evidence with the jury,” Turley added. “So the thing to keep in mind is: When the prosecution wraps up its case, the defense will stand up and make a standard motion for a directed verdict to say there is insufficient evidence to support a crime in this case.”
