Habba drops allegation after brushback from Carroll lawyer

Former President Trump’s lead attorney in his defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll quickly dropped an insinuation that the judge had a “mentor” relationship with Carroll’s lead lawyer once the lawyer refuted the accusation.

Trump attorney Alina Habba wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday quoting a recent New York Post article, which cited a single anonymous source’s claims that Kaplan had a “mentor” relationship with Carroll’s lawyer when they worked at the same law firm in the 1990s.

Robbie Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, who is not related to the judge, pushed back and threatened sanctions, saying she never worked with the now-judge at Paul, Weiss and didn’t remember any direct interaction with him.

Stressing the firm’s “large” size, Kaplan said she was a junior associate at the time, while the future judge was a leader in its litigation department.

“While Ms. Habba ends her letter by characterizing this as a ‘troubling matter,’ … what is actually troubling is both the substance and timing of her false accusations of impropriety by on the part of E. Jean Carroll’s counsel or the Court,” Kaplan wrote.

“Accordingly, while we wanted to submit our response to Ms. Habba’s letter as soon as possible, we reserve all rights, including but not limited to the right to seek sanctions,” she continued.

Within hours, Habba followed up with a new letter dropping the matter.

“The point of my January 29 letter was to verify whether the information contained in the New York Post article is accurate. Since Ms. Kaplan has now denied that there was ever a mentor-mentee relationship between herself and Your Honor, this issue has seemingly been resolved,” Habba wrote.

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The back-and-forth followed a jury’s verdict last week awarding Carroll $83.3 million from Trump over his denials in 2019 that he sexually assaulted the columnist decades earlier. 

Trump vehemently denies Carroll’s story, repeatedly attacking her on Truth Social and on the campaign trial, even after a separate jury last year found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation due to other comments. 

Trump has vowed to appeal last week’s verdict, and his lawyers have suggested the effort will include taking issue with the judge’s “hostility” toward the former president.

Trump’s lawyers regularly sparred with the judge during the trial, including over his ruling that the former president was automatically liable for defamation in the recent trial because of last year’s verdict.

“There are, however, various other issues relating to the Court’s conduct, including potential bias hostility towards defense counsel, that will be raised in post-trial motions and on appeal,” Habba cautioned in a footnote to her letter dropping the accusation.