Trump lawyer backs off from conflict of interest claim: 'Issue has been resolved'

31 January 2024

MAGA attorney Alina Habba, who represented Donald Trump in writer E. Jean Carroll's second defamation lawsuit against him, has been angrily railing against the judge in the case, Lewis Kaplan.

Habba has accused him of being overtly "hostile" to Trump, claiming that he had a conflict of interest because he once worked at the same law firm as attorney Roberta Kaplan — who represented Carroll in the case and is unrelated to the judge. But according to the Daily Beast's Brett Bachman, Habba appears to have backed off from that argument.

On January 27, the New York Post's Charles Gasparino reported that Lewis Kaplan and Roberta Kaplan were both employed by the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison from 1992-1994. Lewis Kaplan left the firm in 1994 when President Bill Clinton appointed him to the federal judiciary, but Roberta Kaplan stayed until 2016.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Gasparino's article was published the day after a jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages in her second defamation case against Trump, who has appealed the verdict with Habba's help.

On Monday, January 29, Habba sent an angry letter to the court arguing that it was a conflict of interest for Lewis Kaplan to preside over a case in which Roberta Kaplan represented the plaintiff.

Habba wrote, "The underlying defamation case tried last year, and the damages trial completed last week, were both litigations in which there were many clashes between Your Honor and defense counsel. We believe, and will argue on appeal, that the Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards Plaintiff's counsel. Indeed, the rulings, tone, and demeanor of the bench raised significant concerns even before the New York Post's investigative journalism unearthed these new facts."

But Roberta Kaplan attacked Habba's conflict of interest claims as "utterly baseless."

Roberta Kaplan, in response, wrote, "During that relatively brief period more than thirty years ago, I do remember the Paul, Weiss partners with whom I worked and none of them was Your Honor. More specifically, I have no recollection from that time period of ever interacting with Your Honor on a case, participating with Your Honor in a client or case-related meeting, or attending a court proceeding with Your Honor. In fact, I remember no direct interaction from that time period with Your Honor at all."

Roberta Kaplan continued, "This is hardly surprising since at that time, I was a very junior associate at a large New York law firm and Your Honor was one of the leaders of the Paul, Weiss litigation department. Needless to say, at no point have we ever had a 'mentor' type relationship, as alleged by Ms. Habba."

Habba, Bachman reports, "almost immediately backed off the claims in another letter."

"Since Ms. Kaplan has now denied that there was ever a mentor-mentee relationship between herself and Your Honor," Habba wrote, "this issue has seemingly been resolved."

From Your Site Articles