Alina Habba, the Donald Trump defense attorney who has drawn the ire of judges and even her own teammates, has settled with a former Trump National Golf Club Bedminster employee who accused her of betraying her oath as a lawyer — all to get into the former president’s inner circle.
Habba signed the monetary settlement on Aug. 27, and the terms remain confidential. The deal is the latest chapter in the legal problems Habba, Trump’s favorite TV bulldog, is facing.
Habba’s professional ethics were called into question last year when Alice Bianco, a former waitress at Bedminster, sued the golf club for having allegedly “defrauded” her into accepting $15,000 on the condition that she keep quiet about sexual harassment allegations. Habba brokered that deal, the lawsuit alleges. Nondisclosure agreements “relating to a claim of discrimination, retaliation, or harassment” are “against public policy and unenforceable” in New Jersey, per statute.
In March, the club agreed to void the hush money deal in a settlement agreement, let her keep the cash and pay her lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, $82,500 in fees. But the club cut Habba out of that settlement, leaving her wide open to getting personally sued for her role in the ordeal.
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Habba and Bianco attended mediation and later agreed to settle the matter out of court, Bianco and Smith told NOTUS, calling the deal a complete victory.
“I feel very proud. I’m very grateful to have my life back. This was a three-year-long fight that caused many sleepless nights,” Bianco said. “I pray that she gets what she deserves.”
In the summer of 2021, Bianco was a 21-year-old server at Bedminster, which doubles as Trump’s summertime home in New Jersey. That’s when, according to her lawsuit, she says she got tired of facing a barrage of sexual harassment from her boss, who oversaw the restaurant staff.
“He’s a sick, sick fuck,” Bianco said of her former manager at the club, echoing allegations in the lawsuit that he required her to “engage in sex as a quid pro quo for continued employment and protection.”
In the original hush money deal, the club denied any wrongdoing — but warned Bianco to stay quiet about the ordeal or face a $1,000 fine for every day she violates the nondisclosure agreement’s confidentiality provision.
Bianco hired an employment lawyer to consider her options and discussed the matter with coworkers. Then, she was approached by Habba, who portrayed herself as a concerned friend willing to give legal advice. At the time, Bianco only knew Habba as a member of the social club who loved to grab the microphone on party nights and belt out songs in the dining hall, per text messages filed in court documents.
Habba ultimately convinced Bianco to ditch the lawyer and go with her instead — then advised the waitress to sign a hush money deal that would keep the club out of news headlines and leave Bianco with a paltry sum, per text messages cited in the lawsuit. When Bianco later discovered she owed taxes on the $15,000 she had received, Habba gave her the cold shoulder.
“I can’t technically give u legal advice,” Habba texted back, in a message attached to the lawsuit. “That’s the problem.”
In the past, Habba has insisted that she has always conducted herself “ethically and acted no differently in this circumstance.” In court filings during Bianco’s lawsuit against the club, Bedminster’s lawyers asserted that it “cannot be held liable for Ms. Habba’s purported misrepresentations.” Habba did not provide comment when reached by NOTUS.
Feeling that she’d been taken advantage of, Bianco eventually hired her current attorney, Smith. Combing through text messages and legal paperwork, they pieced together a timeline that they believe shows how Habba silenced Bianco to cozy up to Trump.
Habba had Bianco sign the nondisclosure deal on Aug. 11, 2021. Three weeks later, Habba officially joined Trump’s legal team by replacing the well-known litigator Marc E. Kasowitz on a closely watched defamation lawsuit in New York City brought on by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.
“The timing could not be more definitive. She silenced me in order to be in Trump’s good graces,” Bianco told NOTUS. “She is evil. She does the devil’s work for free. She acted as a caring guide in my life. She acted like she could help me, only to then completely ghost me and use me for her own success.”
Habba went on to represent Trump in many of his high-profile legal battles, most notably defending him in federal court over allegations he raped and later defamed the life advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and facing off with the New York Attorney General’s Office during a 12-week bank fraud trial in state court. Habba lost both cases at trial, which are now on appeal.
Critics, like national security attorney Bradley Moss and journalist Bill Grueskin, have often made snide remarks about how a “parking garage lawyer” from New Jersey somehow became a former American president’s go-to civil lawyer, leading the charge on some of his most vindictive legal fights.
Habba also represented Trump when he sued The New York Times and three investigative reporters over a Pulitzer Prize-winning story in 2018 about his family’s tax practices — a lawsuit that remains active against the former president’s niece, Mary Trump, but resulted in him having to pay the newspaper $392,639 in attorney’s fees. Habba also represented Trump in his shotgun pleading against former rival Hillary Clinton, which was tossed out by a federal judge who called out Trump’s “pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes” and found Trump and Habba jointly and severally liable for $937,989.
Habba has since elevated her prominence in the Trump 2024 campaign, speaking at rallies and continuing to defend him on conservative news networks.
Bianco’s lawsuit against Bedminster still opens up Habba to a possible ethics investigation that could put her professional credentials at risk. New Jersey Superior Court Judge Joseph L. Rea, who oversaw the club lawsuit, hinted at a possible subsequent investigation in handwritten notes he scribbled at the bottom of a court order last December.
Citing the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct, Rea promised to “take appropriate action” with Habba “if this court receives reliable information indicating a substantial likelihood that a lawyer has committed a violation of the rules of professional conduct … that raises a substantial question as to the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer.”
This week, New Jersey courts spokesperson MaryAnn Spoto told NOTUS the Office of Attorney Ethics and the Disciplinary Review Board “do not disclose cases that are before them. That information becomes public if/when disciplinary action is taken.”
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Jose Pagliery is a reporter at NOTUS.
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