Alina Habba, once President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and now the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, has quietly been under investigation by the state’s professional regulators for more than a year — putting her license to practice law at risk.
NOTUS obtained documents detailing the investigation, which since January 2024 has been probing what happened when a young waitress at Trump’s Bedminster golf club tried to sue over sexual harassment by her manager.
Nancy Erika Smith, who represents the former Bedminster employee and filed the ethics complaint, told NOTUS she decided to come forward publicly about the investigation after patiently waiting for months without a resolution.
“I released it because I think it’s important that people know,” she said.
The New Jersey Supreme Court’s Office of Attorney Ethics has been looking into allegations that Habba mistreated the employee — becoming her lawyer only to convince her to accept a hush money deal for a paltry sum, all to ingratiate herself with Trump.
The complaint closely adheres to allegations already made in state court — with a complaint backed by dozens of text messages — that Habba befriended Alice Bianco in the summer of 2021 when the 21-year-old waitress had just found an employment lawyer to file a sexual harassment lawsuit. Text messages show that Habba privately disparaged the other lawyer and offered herself up instead, drafting a $15,000 nondisclosure agreement.
Just weeks later, documents show, Habba officially became Trump’s lawyer in his lawsuit against “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, with her small firm in the New Jersey suburbs replacing one of the top litigation firms in the country, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP.
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.”
New Jersey outlaws such nondisclosure agreements, and Bianco later hired another attorney who sued Trump’s golf club and scored an $82,500 settlement that left Habba out — and still exposed her to further legal liability. Last year, NOTUS broke the news that Habba quietly settled the matter with Bianco.
This state ethics investigation predates a more recent complaint, filed last week by the nonprofit watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability, that asked the ethics office to investigate Habba over the way she has used her office to pursue criminal investigations of Trump’s political opponents. Habba was behind the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka when he visited a federal immigration detention center in Newark to protest its reopening, the prosecution of Rep. LaMonica McIver, and the announced criminal investigations into Gov. Phil Murphy and state Attorney General Matt Platkin.
The newly revealed ethics investigation means Habba was actively being investigated for professional misconduct when Trump appointed her on an interim basis as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey. Her temporary term, which began in March, is up on July 22. On Tuesday, Trump officially nominated her for the position, which would require Senate approval.
It’s unclear why the investigation is still ongoing.
Smith said New Jersey state investigators last year interviewed her, Bianco, and Bianco’s former lawyer James E. Burden, then returned with follow-up questions before turning to Habba. Smith said she provided investigators with information on Sept. 10 that would prepare them for that meeting, and that she believes investigators interviewed Habba in the fall.
Smith also told NOTUS she spoke to the offices of Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim about the investigation on Thursday. As New Jersey’s senators, Booker and Kim would traditionally hold the power to approve or disapprove a president’s picks for their state’s U.S. attorney, under what’s called the “blue slip” process. Neither office immediately responded to requests for comment.
Habba did not respond to questions sent to her Thursday afternoon. The New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office also did not immediately respond by phone or email.
Earlier this week, Booker and Kim issued a joint statement that said in Habba’s tenure “as an interim U.S. Attorney, she has degraded the office and pursued frivolous and politically motivated prosecutions.”
Booker also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which interviews high-ranking Justice Department nominees. Democratic senators, however, have lately been crying foul over the Trump administration’s refusal to honor “blue slips.” In May, Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Dick Durbin called out the White House for “reaching out to individual senators in a capacity that is not consistent with the blue slip.”