Donald Trump’s foolish attorney Alina Habba got schooled and scolded today by Judge Lewis Kaplan after trying yet again to delay the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.
With Trump and Carroll both sitting in the Manhattan courtroom today — the first time the two have been in the same room in decades — Habba immediately got into it with the judge, asking for “a one-day adjournment of this trial” so that Trump could attend the photo-op, er, funeral of Melania’s mother.
Somehow, Habba missed the memo: Kaplan has already heard her argument and already ruled days ago that no, the trial would not be postponed. But the judge also said that Trump had permission to testify on Monday if he attended the funeral, even if the rest of the trial ends this Thursday.
So Kaplan was in no mood this morning when Habba wasted time with the same tired argument. First came the schooling: “When the ruling is made, that is the end not the beginning of argument.” And then came the scolding: “The argument is over!”
“When the ruling is made that is the end not the beginning of argument,” Kaplan said at one point — perhaps as a nod to the lengthy arguments Judge Arthur Engoron allowed in Trump’s recent New York civil fraud trial.
Habba requested the judge grant an adjournment Thursday, so Trump does not have to decide whether to be in court at trial or at his mother-in-law’s funeral.
“I am asking you, sir, now for a one-day adjournment of this trial” Thursday to “allow my clients to be there so that he can be present for every day of this trial as he has a right to be,” Habba said.
“I am not stopping him from being there,” Kaplan said.
“No, you’re stopping him from being here, Your Honor,” Habba responded.
“The argument is over,” Kaplan said, declining to change his previous ruling.
