E. Jean Carroll’s Lawyer Threatens Sanctions Against Trump Counsel Alina Habba For Making False Claim About Her In Court

Roberta Kaplan, the lead lawyer for E. Jean Carroll in her defamation suit against former President Donald Trump, threatened to pursue sanctions against Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, for making a false claim about her relationship with U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the case.

On January 29, Habba stated in a letter to the federal court in Manhattan that Judge Kaplan had a conflict of interest that might warrant overturning the $83.3 million jury award for Carroll.

In her letter, Trump’s lawyer cited a New York Post article mentioning the judge allegedly working with Kaplan. (The two are not related.)

They both worked at Paul, Weiss Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison in the early 1990s, before Kaplan left to become a founding partner of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP.

“They overlapped for less than two years in the early 90s at a large law firm when he was a senior partner and she was a junior associate and she never worked for him,” the spokesperson for the firm stated.

“It was never disclosed,” Habba stated in regards to this relationship. “It’s insane and so incestuous.”

“This is news to us,” she added. “We are going to include this in our appeal and take appropriate measures. The fact it wasn’t disclosed is an ethics violation.”

“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,” Habba wrote. “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.”

“If Your Honor truly worked with Ms. Kaplan in any capacity — especially if there was a mentor/mentee relationship — that fact should have been disclosed before any case involving these parties was permitted to proceed forward,” Trump’s lawyer continued.

Habba asked for more information about the judge’s previous working relationship with Kaplan.

“Here, without knowing more information (or having a specific factual denial by Your Honor that you had a mentor-mentee relationship with Ms. Kaplan), we are unable to flesh out our position concerning what specific relief should be requested,” she stated.

“Surely, however, this Court should provide defense counsel with all of the relevant facts,” she then claimed in reference to Trump’s expected request for a new trial. “At a minimum, this information could certainly prove relevant to President Trump’s forthcoming Rule 59 motion [to dismiss the case].”

On January 30, Roberta Kaplan wrote a letter saying she had no memory of interacting with Judge Kaplan while he was at Paul, Weiss Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison.

“In fact, I remember no direct interaction from that time period with Your Honor at all,” she stated. “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.”

Later on in the letter, Kaplan explained why Trump and Habba used this accusation against her.

“From the very start of the recently concluded trial, Donald Trump and Ms. Habba have pushed a false narrative of judicial bias so that they could characterize any jury verdict against Trump as the product of a corrupt system,” the lawyer wrote.

Roberta Kaplan ended her letter by saying that she may seek sanctions against Habba for making this accusation.

“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,” she asserted. “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 pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11.”

Two hours after this letter, Habba followed up with a new letter in which she responded to Roberta Kaplan’s threat by dropping the accusation.

“The purpose of the letter was simply to inquire as to whether there is any merit to a recently published New York Post story which reported on the alleged existence of such a relationship,” she explained.

“The point of my January 29 letter was to verify whether the information contained in the New York Post article is accurate,” she added. “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.”

During the trial, Judge Kaplan cut off Trump’s court testimony for his defamation suit after he failed to abide by his orders.

On January 26, Trump attacked Judge Kaplan on Truth Social after storming out of court during Carroll’s defamation trial, stating that the trial was one-sided since the judge would not let him defend himself.