On Nov. 24, 2023, an X user with the handle @PatMaguire10 published a post (archived) that said Fox News had reported a "breaking" story about former U.S. President Donald Trump's defense attorney, Alina Habba. Habba was one of two lawyers who were representing Trump in his civil fraud trial in New York. The post claimed that Habba's law firm had five federal tax liens totaling $1.7 million.
The post read, "BREAKING FOX NEWS: Tax Tracker reports Trump lawyer Alina Habba's law firm has 5 federal tax liens totalling 1.7$m. The fire brand attorney who graduated from B.J. University has never won a case or a decision. Reliable sources say Trump has not paid Alina's law firm since 2021."
However, the truth was that this X account posts parody content. The bio for @PatMaguire10 said that it's a "raw & unfiltered parody account." In other words, Fox News didn't report on any such news about Habba having a law firm with five tax liens totaling $1.7 million.
The post may have been inspired by an article from In Touch Weekly that was published days earlier on Nov. 13. That story reported that Habba and her husband, Gregg Reuben, "owe more than one million dollars in liens and warrants." However, only two liens totaling $2,193 specifically involved Habba, while the rest of the "more than one million dollars" amount pertained to Reuben, according to the reporting.
As for the rest of the parody post, here are some facts: Habba graduated from Widener University Commonwealth Law School in Pennsylvania in 2011, her cases "have resulted in a mixed record" and "her firm has been paid $3.6 million from Trump's political action committees," all according to ABC News.
We previously reported about a similar rumor that came from the same parody account that claimed Fox News reported that Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club had received a foreclosure notice from Deutsche Bank. That, too, was nothing more than fiction.