Alina Habba, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, was highly critical of special counsel Jack Smith’s urgency to obtain a Supreme Court ruling on the topic of immunity for the former president.
Last week, the special counsel’s office filed a petition with the Supreme Court and asked the justices to expedite their decision on whether President Trump had immunity in connection to election-related charges that Smith had filed against the president earlier this year.
Habba spoke with Fox Business following the petition, saying that “there is some sort of real sense of urgency” from Smith, adding, “The only urgency that I can see is that there is an election in November 2024, and they can’t beat him.”
She continued, saying that “everyone can see” what Smith’s team is doing with the case, characterizing it as “election interference,” targeting her client. “They can’t beat him in the ballots, so they’re gonna have to either, you know, lie, cheat, steal or the newest, is lawfare, put him in jail, tie him up,” she continued, adding that “it’s un-American.”
Trump is now “getting a lot of voters that he normally wouldn’t get because they’re seeing this, and he is the victim of, all of a sudden, they’ve made him a victim of complete and utter election interference and lawfare.”
The lawyer also offered speculation on why the Supreme Court took up the case as quickly as they did, saying one “can read that both ways.
“You can either interpret it as they want a quick response because it’s a non-issue and they’re not going to take it up, or they want a quick response because this needs to be shut down because there are so many other cases where they’re trying to do this,” Habba said. “You know, I don’t know what’s going on in their minds, but I do have faith in the Supreme Court. I think that those justices really take their office seriously. And we’ve seen that time and time again with them, especially recently.”
Smith wrote to the justices that “it is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this Court and that respondent’s trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected.” He had previously claimed that the former president’s appeal was an attempt to delay his trial.
Trump’s trial date in Washington is set for March 4, just one day before Super Tuesday. Trump is also facing charges in New York, Georgia and Florida and a civil trial for writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him.
