Trump attorney Alina Habba on Wednesday did not rule out the former president seeking out foreign money to pay his New York fraud judgment.
Trump’s inability to secure bond to appeal the $454 million judgment against him has raised questions about where he may get the money. “Nobody wants to lend him the money, in this country anyway. Who knows what’s going to happen with Russia and Saudi Arabia?” Joy Behar, the co-host of “The View,” said in a recent segment.
Fox News host Martha MacCallum asked Habba about the concerns on Wednesday.
“Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country, Saudi Arabia or Russia?” she asked.
“Well, there’s rules and regulations that are public. I can’t speak about strategy, that requires certain things and we have to follow those rules. Like I said, this is manifest injustice. It is impossible — it is an impossibility. I believe they knew that,” Habba said.
“I think that’s why mid-trial, frankly, they changed their ask from $250 million to the ridiculous amount of money that they have asked for,” she continued. “I think everything is done intentionally. I do not doubt that the witch-hunt that the election interference goal is what was ringing steady and loudly and true throughout all these trials, frankly. And we’re seeing it. It’s the demise of our country, not the demise of Trump. So we’ll handle it as we always have and keep working hard.”
FOX NEWS: Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country, Saudi Arabia or Russia?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 20, 2024
HABBA: I can't speak about strategy pic.twitter.com/G0Ns1lqXJH
Observers couldn’t help but notice that Habba never said “no.”
“Wtf,” tweeted Luke Zaleski, the legal affairs editor at Conde Nast.
“Very easy to just say ‘no we are not taking foreign money’ that’s not at all what she said,” wrote Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.
Experts have increasingly expressed concern about where Trump may get the money.
Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told CNN that the presumptive Republican nominee seeking out a third party “is raising national security concerns, because you really don’t want someone who’s running for president...to have hundreds of millions of reasons to be beholden to somebody.”
“The other way is he finds a third party. That is the one that for me...is raising national security concerns, because you really don’t want someone who’s running for president...to have hundreds of millions of reasons to be beholden to somebody," @AWeissmann_ on Trump's bond. pic.twitter.com/JVQBxn9uDm
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 21, 2024
“In the event that [Trump] has to take that money from an individual or an entity, whether domestic or international, that individual or entity will potentially have real influence over him and so that is of concern,” former U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice told MSNBC. “There’s just so many ways the stench of money from dubious places infuses his business enterprise and so this would add more questions should that be the case going forward,” she added.
