One of former President Donald Trump‘s top lawyers is nervous that jurors in his New York hush money trial are likely to be exposed to “Trump derangement syndrome” during their Memorial Day outings.
While Alina Habba is confident about the merits of Trump’s defense, she said that jurors should have been sequestered from the public for the holiday weekend ahead of closing arguments this coming week.
“In my opinion, these jurors are handling something that is completely unprecedented,” Habba told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.
“I have worries about them going back to whatever friends might have ‘Trump derangement syndrome,’ forgetting all sense of reality, and coming back and sitting in that box and saying, you know what, I have got to take one for the DNC [Democratic National Committee].”
Sequestration means that jurors would be stashed in a hotel and looked after by court officers, who ensure they do not consume news media or speak to anyone else about the trial.
The idea is to prevent the jurors from being influenced by information outside of the courtroom.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan declined to sequester the jury in the case that has spanned well over a month.
Habba, who defended Trump in his civil fraud case in which he was ultimately ordered to pay $455 million plus interest — a verdict he is now appealing — was adamant that the facts of the case bode well for Trump.
“There are no facts that support this alleged crime,” she insisted. “We’re not even sure what the crime is. So it’s a books and records issue.”
Trump, 77, has been charged with 34 counts for falsification of business records to conceal hush money payments with the alleged intent of aiding his election effort.
The former president has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all charges pending against him, as he has done with his other three criminal indictments.
Habba, who sat through Trump’s hush money trial, underscored her gripes with Merchan and explained her biggest concern about Trump’s prospects in the case is the jury instructions.
“It always has been — there was no case,” she argued.
“The last resort for the prosecution is going to be this judge with political motivations going to give them instructions on how to decide the fate of a former president and the future president of the United States.”
She also slammed Merchan’s “unconstitutional” gag order issued in March that restricts the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee’s ability to comment on witnesses, jurors or the family of prosecutors or the judge.
Merchan has found that Trump violated that order almost a dozen times.
Trying not to violate that gag order, Habba alluded to her concerns with Merchan’s political history and that of his daughter.
“That’s a good issue for an appeal because the judge refused to recuse himself. But there is no question that it’s politically motivated,” she said.
Throughout the trial process, President Biden has largely been mum, with an occasional reference to Trump’s courtroom-dominated schedule.
But Biden is planning to publicly address the matter once a verdict is reached, Politico reported.
Meanwhile, Trump’s allies and surrogates have been out in full force backing him up in the media world.
“Well, there’s no crime, so I assume that they will actually find him innocent,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“The only person guilty in that courtroom is DA [Alvin] Bragg — guilty of corrupting the justice system, guilty of not doing his job, and guilty of trying to frame an innocent man.
Should the jury find him guilty, it will be the first time in US history that a former US president has been convicted of a significant crime.
