New Jersey lawyer Alina Habba went from a relatively unknown civil litigation attorney to a national name when she was hired by former President Donald Trump in 2021.
The glamorous former fashion executive is now one of the top legal minds defending the ex-commander-in-chief in some of the country’s most high-profile civil cases. She is also one of his closest confidantes.
When Trump, 76, pleaded not guilty to history-making federal charges of mishandling classified records, Habba was right there to support him — even though she isn’t representing him in the precedent-setting criminal proceedings.
Speaking outside the Miami federal courthouse as Trump’s spokesperson, the brunette firebrand came out swinging against the prosecution, describing the charges against her client as a political hit job.
“The decision to pursue charges against President Trump while turning a blind eye to others is emblematic of the corruption that we have here,” Habba, 39, insisted.
“We are at a turning point in our nation’s history. The targeting prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships, like Cuba and Venezuela,” she continued.
“What is being done to President Trump should terrify all citizens of this country. These are not the ideals that our democracy is founded upon. This is not our America.”
The mother-of-three, who previously worked for New York fashion designer Marc Jacobs, is the managing partner of a six-lawyer firm, Habba Madaio & Associates, located near Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
She became a national name when Trump retained her firm in September 2021 to sue his niece, Mary Trump, and the New York Times for damages over the publication of information about his tax returns.
On June 9, 2023, a New York State justice rejected Mary’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, ruling that the litigation may resume.
Habba is also representing the former president in the New York Attorney General’s case against him and three of his children.
The Trumps stand accused of “staggering” financial fraud in the $250 million civil case, with Trump grilled for more than seven hours during a deposition in April about his company’s businesses practices.
In addition to her work on numerous cases for the former president, Habba is also an ardent Trump admirer and a regular at both his Palm Beach resort and Bedminster, NJ, golf club, according to her social media posts.
“Starting this year off with amazing patriots at the rally in Texas and the greatest President of all time #45 soon to be #47,” Habba wrote on her Instagram account next to a photo that shows her sitting beside Trump for her birthday in February.
“The man golfed, went to Texas, crushed his speech and still made time to make sure I had birthday cake.”
But the attorney has weathered staunch criticisms of her defense of Trump, with detractors claiming she was only hired because of her looks.
“And just because I’m pretty doesn’t mean I’m not a brilliant lawyer,” Habba previously told the Post.
Habba has also suffered some professional setbacks — having lost a racketeering case for the former president in the US District Court in Florida in early 2023. The suit accused Hillary Clinton and others of trying to rig the 2016 presidential election in the Democrat’s favor.
Trump was ordered to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions toward Clinton’s legal costs as well as those of several Department of Justice officials.
“This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote in his scathing 46-page order. “No reasonable lawyer would have filed it,” he continued.
Habba said she was disappointed but undaunted following the brutal comment.
“I’m not political. What I am is a good American, who just can’t believe what I am seeing in terms of the corruption that has taken over this country.”
Habba, whose family immigrated from Iraq in the 1980s to escape persecution of Christians in that country, grew up in New Jersey.
She is married and has a nine-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, as well as a 15-year-old son from her husband’s first marriage, she told The Post.
Fond of tailored suits and designer handbags, Habba was also made a senior advisor for MAGA Inc, a Trump political action committee. She is said to be close to the former president’s son Eric Trump.
Before her work in the Trump universe, she was the lead counsel in a federal class action lawsuit against a New Jersey nursing home accused of negligence during the early days of the COVID pandemic, and a civil lawsuit against a Connecticut municipality for the rape of numerous children by a town employee over several decades, according to her bio on her firm’s website.
