Counselor to the president Alina Habba tore into the press and defended the president’s embattled national security advisor minutes after the Atlantic released the full text of the group chat about a military attack that included its editor. 

Habba, who helped represent Trump in the Stormy Daniels trial and other cases and followed him to the White House and who Trump named to be the next U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, said national security advisor Mike Waltz is doing a ‘tremendous’ job.

‘We’re allowed to have communications. That’s period the end, and the President spoke to this. We stand by my Mike Waltz, who’s doing a tremendous job. I think this is a distraction,’ Habba told reporters at the White House. 

That came hours after Waltz defended himself in an interview on Fox News with Laura Ingraham, while fending off questions about how Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who Waltz said he doesn’t know, was added to the chat.

‘I’m sure everybody out there has had a contact where you – it was said one person and then a different phone number … if you have somebody else’s contact and then somehow it gets sucked in. It gets sucked in.  

Habba went after the media generally, although she was more restrained than Trump, who called Goldberg a ‘total sleazebag’ even while acknowledging the weaknesses of using a commercial app by saying ‘sometimes somebody can get onto those things.’

‘I’m really not going to stand here and answer questions that the better part of yesterday was spent by the people that were actually involved answering,’ Habba bristled, pointing to Tuesday’s Senate hearing with top intelligence officials. 

‘We stand by my Mike Waltz, who’s doing a tremendous job,’ counselor to the president Alina Habba told reporters amid a probe of the group chat being overseen by Trump’s national security advisor Michael Waltz

‘I was not a part of that conversation, but I will say this: we need to be looking at all the good things that we’re doing, and every time to come out and to speak to the press and have it be a negative spin. It’s much like what I’ve done for the better of four years. The negative spin needs to stop.’ 

Habba got asked if Goldberg could be held liable for publishing the contents of the group chat, now that CIA Director John Ratcliffe and others said the information was not classified. 

‘If you look at it, we have classifications, we have declassified conversations, and we’re also allowed to use signal for top level official communications,’ the former Trump lawyer said. ‘We also have other means of communications that were used. And again, I’ll speak to that. But this is, I’m not here to defend the Atlantic. It’s a typical thing where a journalist is trying to make a name for himself, and I think he’s making quite the name for himself,’ she continued. 

Habba represented Trump during several of his personal legal battles. He is appointing her to be U.S. attorney in New Jersey

We stand by my Mike Waltz, who’s doing a tremendous job. I think this is a distraction,’ Habba told reporters

She spoke after the release of the entire text chain released new operational details about the ongoing mission to hit at Houthi targets in Yemen.

‘More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)’ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,’ as the attacks were underway.

‘Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets),’ he wrote five minutes later.

‘F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched,’ went another Hegseth update.

Her admonitions aside, the story showed no sign of going away, as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Ratcliffe faced new questions before the House Intelligence panel.

In her new prepared answer as the story swirled, Gabbard offered a new description of the material that the administration says was not classified. ‘The conversation was candid and sensitive,’ she said.