Alina Habba, one of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys, sought to discredit the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month by pointing out that a photograph included in a Department of Justice court filing late Tuesday was of documents arranged on the floor rather than where they were originally found.
Habba, hours after labeling as “mundane” the statutes in the search warrant relating to espionage and obstruction, spoke to Sean Hannity, who also latched onto the photograph as somehow malicious, missing the forest for the trees.
“Alina, I want to get your take on this, because this was obviously done for public consumption. This was obviously designed to influence public opinion,” the Fox host said. “What happened to the Merrick Garland that said we will do all of our talking in court and in our filings. Where’s that guy?”
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“Yeah, nowhere,” Habba replied. “What has happened is now they have put this picture out so that you would assume…I am somebody who has been in his office. I’ve seen it. This is not the way his office looks,” Habba complained.
The FBI photograph of documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container stored at Trump’s Florida estate.
U.S. Department of Justice via Reuters“They give you this appearance that you walk in and there are these top-secret documents just strewn about,” she continued, adding later that the Department of Justice is trying to turn the case into a “complete public spectacle.”
“Did the FBI do that or was that the way that room looked before they went in there? Do you have any firsthand knowledge?” Hannity asked directly.
“I do have firsthand knowledge, as you know. I have been down there. I’m down there frequently. I have never seen that. I have never, ever seen that. That is not the way his office looks,” Habba replied, adding that the former president has guests often.
“It’s just a joke. They literally must have gone in and taken out documents they wanted or cover letters as it is, and put it about so that the public believes that these are top-secret documents that were on his floor. It’s ridiculous. I can tell you personally, it’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen that.”
From there, Hannity once more tried to assign some nefarious motives on the part of the government in light of the photograph.
“What we are really looking at here is the Department of Justice, the FBI staging a picture to influence public opinion,” Hannity said, later suggesting that doing so would “taint a jury pool.”
