Gates Breach With Lawyers Blamed on `Irreconcilable Differences'
Manafort Co-Defendant Gates Has `Private' Reason for Lawyer Swap
(Bloomberg) -- When three lawyers for Paul Manafort’s co-defendant Rick Gates asked to be removed from the money-laundering case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, speculation mounted that a plea deal was in the works.
The mystery was somewhat dispelled in a court filing made public Wednesday that revealed part of the reason for the legal divorce.
"Irreconcilable differences have developed with the client which make our effective representation of the client impossible," the attorneys said in their Feb. 1 submission. "Counsel is constrained by attorney-client privilege as to the specifics involved but understand that the court may wish to inquire more specifically."
The attorneys met Wednesday behind closed doors with U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. After the 80-minute hearing, the judge said she took the defense team’s request to quit under advisement.
“No change in status right now,” Gates’s lawyer Shanlon Wu told reporters as he left the building.
In the court papers, they explained their reticence to make public their reasons. Wu and his co-counsel noted the court’s ban on pre-trial publicity, saying the sealed paper involved "highly sensitive matters concerning the defendant and public disclosure of the information would potentially be prejudicial to the defendant.”
Other lawyers seeking to leave are Walter Mack and Annemarie McAvoy. Should the judge agree, a new attorney, Tom Green, will take over, according to CNN. Green hasn’t notified the judge that he’d be representing Gates and he wasn’t seen entering or leaving the courtroom.
Manafort, who was Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign director, and Gates, the deputy campaign manager, are accused of failing to register as agents in the U.S. for political consulting they did for Ukraine and pro-Russian politicians there, conspiring to launder millions of dollars, and hiding offshore bank accounts. Manafort allegedly laundered money to buy houses, cars, clothes and landscaping services. Both men deny wrongdoing.
The case is U.S. v. Manafort, 17-cr-201, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
To contact the reporters on this story: David Voreacos in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net, Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider, Paul Cox
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.