Exclusive: Trump Attorney Alina Habba Doesn’t Believe He Was Being ‘Literal’ in Alleged Bedminster Meeting Transcript

Donald Trump with inset of Alina Habba
Andrew Harnik, File/AP; Amir Hamja/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Alina Habba, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, told Sirius XM Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow she does not believe he was being “literal” during the alleged private meeting at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, where the indictment suggests he disclosed classified material. 

During the conversation, which lasted nearly half an hour, the Breitbart News editor-in-chief and Habba spoke in depth about the Trump indictment. The host noted that while he views the prosecution as entirely politically motivated, he is concerned about the transcript of an alleged audio recording of the meeting that suggests materials were still classified and that Trump knew it. 

A portion of the purported transcript, which was first shared with CNN and later surfaced in the unsealed indictment, suggests Trump stated, “Look what I found, this was [the Senior Military Officials’] plan of attack, read it and just show… it’s interesting.” 

Trump is later accused of saying, “See, as president I could have declassified it… Now I can’t but this is still a secret.” 

Habba told Marlow she is “not concerned” about “one of [Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s special cherry-picking lines,” and that the full transcript needs to come to light.

“Yeah, I haven’t heard it, first of all. I have yet to hear it. I obviously have read the portions and heard what has been publicized. … But my understanding, if you look at it, you have to see context. At that time, he could not declassify. He was not the president. That doesn’t mean he didn’t declassify prior. We need to see the entire transcript, but you know, I’m not concerned. I know it’s one of Jack Smith’s special cherry-picking lines that he took from a recording.”

“Obviously, we all know there were a lot of people that they brought into the grand jury to intimidate. There was a lot of deep diving for them to try and put this together and make it sound egregious,” she added. “But these are parts of the story, and again, you know, once we get through our discovery, we will put that in our papers and there will be an explanation for everything. I can assure you of that.”

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Marlow said that when there is an explanation, “please come back and share with us.” 

Habba emphasized “unfortunately” she could not “show all of our cards.” 

“We have a case that we have to put on, and they’re listening to everything I’m saying and I’m aware of that, well aware of that. And it’ll come out in the case, and we also need a fair opportunity to depose people and see what their answers are to some of the things that we have questions about, like the raid and like why they asked us to shut cameras off, and things of that nature. So we’ll get to the bottom of it,” she said. 

When asked if she thought Trump was being literal during the conversation alleged in the transcript, Habba said she did not believe he was.

“I don’t think he was being literal,” she said. “I think that’s a very good general way of categorizing it. I think that you could take a transcript of anything, and somebody could be just speaking, and my understanding is no, not literal at all. Again, we’ll get the whole transcript and we’ll see.”

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President Donald Trump via Storyful

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 to 9:00 A.M. Eastern.

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