Join the club: Alina Habba is latest Trump lawyer facing legal peril
Donald Trump’s bumbling personal attorney Alina Habba is the latest member of Trump’s legal team to face real legal peril. Habba allegedly played a crucial role in a recent settlement between Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club and a former server at the club, leaving the Trump attorney vulnerable to future legal action.
Alice Bianco claimed that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by food and beverage manager Pavel Melichar in 2021, but was manipulated by Habba to sign a nondisclosure agreement as part of a piddling hush-money deal. Bianco sued over the shady deal in November, and last week the golf club agreed to pay her $82,500.
The deal leaves Habba open to further litigation on the matter, as the settlement includes this very purposeful language: “The parties agree that Alina Habba is not a party to this release.” Bianco’s lawyer told The Daily Beast that “My client is certainly considering suing her for fraud.”
This is not the first time Habba has run afoul of legal ethics. Last year, she and Trump were sanctioned nearly $1 million by a Florida judge for filing a "completely frivolous" lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, former FBI officials, and the Democratic Party. The defendants in that case have asked the court to impose additional sanctions and reimburse their court costs; those requests are still pending.
But Habba isn’t the first Trump attorney, or second, or third, or … you get the idea, to find themselves in trouble with the law: