Alina Habba raises serious doubts about her legal training

Donald Trump’s lawyer is complaining that his client is being denied due process because he cannot attend all of his court proceedings.

Alina Habba criticized Judge Juan Merchan on Monday evening for not making a special exception to allow Trump to attend the Supreme Court trial. presidential immunity in Washington, D.C., she insisted that refusing to do so violated a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution.

“Not even allowing one person to have due process, the right to go and sit in front of the Supreme Court and hear a case that is driving many of the immunity suits currently against President Trump.” , Habba complained to Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“Due process” simply means that legal proceedings must be conducted according to certain rules. Trump gets due process by going to court over alleged secret payments. Due process does not guarantee him the right to sit on the Supreme Court.

Another problem is that New York State law requires a criminal defendant to attend every day of their trial, unless they obtain an exception from the judge. Trump’s secret trial began Monday, with Merchan emphasizing the demand. Merchan also noted that it was too early to say whether Trump might attend his son Barron’s party. high school diploma.

Trump and his Republican colleagues may finally realize that even a former president is subject to the same laws and rules as any other criminal defendant. This is Trump’s first criminal trial, and he cannot expect to continue his life normally while the trial is underway, even if it means less travel across the country. to make a campaign Or celebrate. And he’s not completely limited: Trump can still be on the campaign trail every weekend, evening and Wednesday as long as the case continues.

The timing of the trial and its conflicts with other legal proceedings can hardly be considered a constitutional issue. In fact, much of this is due to Trump’s legal strategy: repeatedly delaying the procedure as long as possible to hopefully postpone decisions about him until after Election Daywhich might not even work in his favour.

And this isn’t the first time Habba has apparently failed to understand important parts of the law. During Trump’s defamation trial in January, she Many times failed to understand court procedure and spoke out of turn, and was repeatedly reprimanded by Judge Lewis Kaplan.