A law firm wants to withdraw from representing Donald Trump, citing a breakdown in relations, court documents show.
In a filing to a Manhattan court, the law firm—LaRocca, Hornik, Greenberg, Rosen, Kittridge, Carlin and McPartland—said there had been an “irreparable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
The firm, which has represented Trump and his election campaign for several years, had been defending the former president in a lawsuit filed by A.J. Delgado, Trump’s former senior advisor who said she was fired after she became pregnant by her supervisor during the 2016 presidential campaign. She was Trump’s director of Hispanic outreach at the time.
Delgado is suing the Trump campaign and Trump’s former advisers Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer, claiming gender and pregnancy discrimination. All the defendants have denied any wrongdoing in the case.
Newsweek has contacted the firm and representatives for Trump for comment via email.
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In requesting to withdraw, the attorney Jared Blumetti asked to explain the details to the court “in camera,” meaning privately.
“The primary reason for the Firm’s motion is due to an irreparable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship between the Firm and the [Trump] Campaign, the details of which the Firm respectfully requests leave to explain to the Court in camera,” Blumetti wrote in the filing.
“It is well-established that a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship is sufficient reason to permit withdrawal, even if the source of the breakdown is disputed and the client opposes the motion to withdraw,” he continued.
Blumetti added, citing past case law, that “when faced with a motion to withdraw, the court ‘must … analyze two factors: the reasons for withdrawal and the impact of withdrawal on the timing of the proceeding.'”
With regard to the second factor, he said the withdrawal would “not significantly impact the timing of this proceeding. Indeed, discovery is ongoing, several depositions remain, and the case has not been scheduled for trial.”
On April 29, Delgado filed an objection to the firm’s withdrawal, calling it a “scheme to avoid compliance.”
Judge Katharine H. Parker ruled that the law firm must continue to represent the Trump campaign, but that she would organize a hearing to discuss the issue with the firm and the campaign.
In her lawsuit, Delgado, who is representing herself, said she “felt extremely humiliated, degraded, victimized, embarrassed and emotionally distressed” by the way she was treated by the Trump campaign after she announced her pregnancy.
She said she experienced discrimination that was “malicious, willful, outrageous, and conducted with full knowledge of the law.”
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