New Jersey-based Alina Habba reportedly got to know her No. 1 client, former President Donald Trump, after becoming a member of his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. And since that fateful meeting, she has represented Trump in a variety of lawsuits, ranging from the E. Jean Carroll cases to his now-dismissed racketeering case against the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton. And it was in the latest Carroll trial where Habba’s brash advocacy on Trump’s behalf was fully on display; her frequent disregard for procedural rules and/or prior court orders even brought her to the brink of jail time.
But she has more than one client within Trump world. In the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against the former president, multiple business entities under the Trump Organization umbrella, and others, Habba does not formally represent Trump but does have another significant client: Allen Weisselberg, former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization and convicted felon.
Weisselberg, who worked for the Trump family for nearly a half-century, has long been an intriguing figure — and alleged accomplice to Trump’s own fraud. There’s no question his loyalty to the boss runs deep. After pleading guilty to felony tax fraud in the Manhattan district attorney’s case against him and the Trump Organization in 2022, Weisselberg was forced to testify at trial, but he steadfastly refused to turn on the former president.
And he appears to have been rewarded for his “service.” A day before he was sentenced to five months at New York’s infamous Rikers Island jail, Weisselberg signed a $2 million severance agreement. I’ve previously questioned the legitimacy of that agreement, especially because as a condition of receiving that $2 million in eight installments over nearly two years, Weisselberg may not “communicate with, provide information to, or otherwise cooperate in any way with any other person or entity … having or claiming to…
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