October 2022 - The firm continues to represent Global Risk Advisors (GRA) and its founder, former CIA officer Kevin Chalker, in a case against former president Donald Trump ally Elliott Broidy.

Broidy, a businessman and fundraiser for Trump, has accused GRA and Chalker of conducting an unlawful “hack-and-smear" campaign to silence Broidy's criticism of the State of Qatar. Broidy alleges that the government of Qatar orchestrated the hacking and release of his emails and text messages in retaliation for his work for Qatar's rivals, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Broidy then launched a series of lawsuits against Qatar, and against individuals and entities allegedly allied with it, including GRA.

In August 2022, GRA's and Chalker's former counsel, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, withdrew from the case after Broidy claimed that the role of Gibson partner, former prosecutor Zainab Ahmad, in Robert Mueller's probe of foreign influence on the Trump presidential campaign constituted a conflict of interest.

On Aug. 25, Hughes Hubbard obtained leave from a Manhattan federal judge to supplement the briefing previously submitted by Gibson Dunn in support of GRA’s pending motion to dismiss.  On Sept. 1, the HHR team submitted a supplemental memorandum of law arguing that Plaintiffs’ Second Amended Complaint should be dismissed with prejudice for the additional reason that the anonymous declaration on which it relies to accuse GRA of the hack-and-smear operation lacks the particularity required to support a plausible inference that the declarant was in a position to possess the information alleged against GRA.

Kevin Carroll was quoted in Reuters and Law360, saying that Chalker and GRA both denied Broidy's “implausible claims, which rest upon the declaration of an anonymous source, whose supposed access to the purported information is not described."

On Oct. 11, Broidy's lawyers, Kasowitz Benson Torres, obtained leave from the court to seek sanctions against Gibson Dunn. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said she would delay a ruling on Broidy's request to subpoena Gibson Dunn and depose Ahmad until she considers a motion to dismiss filed by Chalker and GRA. Judge Vyskocil also stated that there is no reason to conduct discovery in this matter before she rules on GRA's motion to dismiss.

Kevin Carroll, Marc Weinstein, Amina Hassan and Tom Lee lead the HHR team representing GRA and Chalker. Kiran Rosenkilde and Hilary McDonnell are also part of the litigation team.