Alina Habba has unlikely excuse for Trump falling asleep in court: ‘He reads a lot’

Donald Trump’s self-described legal adviser, Alina Habba, has given an unlikely reason as to why he appeared to doze off on the opening day of his hush money trial - he reads a lot.

Mr Trump appeared to fall asleep a few times on Monday during jury selection at the New York court. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Mr Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election to ensure her silence about an alleged affair in 2006.

The former president’s apparent naps sparked a wave of memes across social media this week branding the former president “Sleepy Don” and “Don Snorleone.”

President Joe Biden, who Mr Trump has branded “Sleepy Joe,” got in on the joke, with his campaign team posting a meme on X about how Mr Trump would have been “posting at 3am about taking away a woman’s right to chose.”

The Trump campaign called reports of him sleeping “fake news”. But Ms Habba had her own theories.

“President Trump, he reads a lot, I don’t know what he was doing, I wasn’t there, there are no cameras, I wish there were,” Habba told Newsmax on Tuesday.

She also suggested that Mr Trump would have been attending “a very mundane day.”

“He’s been sitting there, as he is forced to, at the threat of going to jail if he’s not sitting there,” she added.

“If anything, he’s probably brutally bored,” she also told Fox News. “I mean it’s painful they make him sit there through jury selection… but no, you know, I’ve heard that report; it’s unlikely, I know him; I sat through trial after trial with him that never happens.”

The Washington Post reported in 2018 that Mr Trump never read daily White House briefings while he was in office. Instead, he preferred oral briefings augmented with photos, videos and graphics, with policy papers reportedly being kept to a single page, the outlet said.

Ms Habba announced this week that she is now Mr Trump’s “legal adviser”, and that her role will entail “spitting the truth” while Mr Trump is in court.

At one point, she said Mr Trump would be like Nelson Mandela if he was jailed for violating the gag order imposed on him during the hush money trial.

The trial judge Juan Merchan imposed the gag order, saying that Mr Trump’s statements were threatening and inflammatory. The judge included his own family after Mr Trump posted disparaging comments online regarding the judge’s daughter.

Mr Trump also previously compared himself to the anti-apartheid activist and former South African president on Truth Social, and criticized Judge Merchan for expanding the gag order against him.

Ms Habba was on Mr Trump’s legal team for the E Jean Carroll civil case. In that trial, Mr Trump was found liable for defamation, resulting in an $83m verdict against him.