Legal expert explains how Alina Habba’s main argument against E. Jean Carroll 'fell flat'

The primary argument former President Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habba is leaning on to minimize damages her former client in his defamation trial is unlikely to yield results, according to a prominent legal expert.

In a thread posted to X (formerly Twitter), attorney and MSNBC contributor Lisa Rubin pointed out that Habba's attempts to suggest writer E. Jean Carroll is better off today than she was when Trump defamed her don't water when examining the facts closely. Rubin acknowledged that while Carroll makes more money today from her Substack newsletter than she did as an Elle columnist and while she may get more invitations to "Upper East Side parties" than she used to, Trump's attacks on her still "end[ed] her world as she knew it."

"[T]he attempt to prove the backlash to Carroll’s account predated Trump’s attack fell flat, in large part because the tweets Habba showed were qualitatively different than the violent threats & accusations of paid political work that began with Trump’s 6/21/19 attack," Rubin tweeted. "And those threats, as Carroll powerfully testified yesterday and today, have never stopped... Even beyond the threats, she maintained, more people know her today, but she is also reviled as a liar, a wack job, and a partisan operative."

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Rubin noted that the ex-president's attorney also echoed Trump's attacks on Carroll — in which Trump repeatedly posted some of Carroll's past tweets about sex and relationships to his Truth Social account — by inferring that the sex and relationship columnist was somehow acting in a promiscuous manner by being outspoken about a taboo topic.

"Habba wanted the jury to doubt Carroll’s credibility because she has (gasp!) written about sex openly and with humor. She’s even written about “dominat[ing] men” and jokingly asked what women should do about the problem of their partner’s penises," Rubin wrote. "That a then-septuagenarian advice columnist could say the word penis without blushing and discuss the importance of communication in sexual relationships doesn’t mean she was or is nutty or slutty. It means she’s human—and capable of having her considerable reputation sullied.

So far this week, US District Judge Lewis F. Kaplan has appeared unimpressed by Habba's arguments, and wasn't hesitant to rebuff her multiple attempts to temporarily adjourn the trial so her client could attend his mother-in-law's funeral. Kaplan on Friday already denied a motion from Trump's legal team to delay the trial by a week, offering "condolences" to the Trump family but reiterating that the trial would go on as scheduled and that the ex-president was free to attend all or parts of the funeral, the trial or both.

"The application is denied. I will hear no further argument on it," Kaplan said Wednesday, of Habba's efforts to adjourn.

READ MORE: 'None. Do you understand that word?' Judge Kaplan smacks down Trump lawyer Alina Habba