Conquered Partners, a company with no public profile and no listed services, confirmed Tuesday that it had terminated Alina Habba from a four-year contract valued at more than $50 million. The company cited her 'failure to perform duties.' A spokesperson declined to say what those duties were. The company also declined to provide a job title.
The termination letter was dated Nov. 4, according to several news reports. It closed a deal that had been announced with great confidence only months earlier. At the time, the firm described Habba as a key addition to a leadership team whose work product was never specified.
The firing followed a public complaint from Dementia Don, who reportedly called the deal 'totally obnoxious and outrageous' and said he did not want Habba paid. The former president did not question the contract's missing scope of work. He objected that someone else had received a $50 million promise without performing the undefined work.
The timeline drew attention inside the former president's orbit. Reports said he erupted over the deal at Mar-a-Lago days before the termination. A spokesperson for Conquered Partners called the timing a coincidence.
Habba's dismissal arrived one day after a formal ethics complaint was filed against her in New Jersey, according to the reports. The state bar confirmed a complaint was pending. It declined to comment on the details.
Before joining the firm, Habba served as interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey. That appointment ended after a federal appeals panel found she had been serving unlawfully. The panel did not address whether she had performed any duties.
The contract itself raised eyebrows from the start. A four-year, $50 million employment agreement is rare for a lawyer with a small practice. It is rarer still when the employer has no website and no clients. The only public product of the deal appears to have been the announcement of the deal.
Conquered Partners was incorporated shortly before the deal was finalized. Its registration lists a Delaware address and no significant online presence. A search for the firm turns up a news release about Habba and almost nothing else.
A company representative, reached by phone, described the decision as routine. 'We conduct periodic reviews of all executive contracts,' the representative said. 'When a contractor does not meet the expectations in the agreement, we act in accordance with standard business practices.'
The representative then declined to name the expectations or explain how they were measured. The ethics complaint, if sustained, could place Habba's law license at risk. The complaint relates to earlier work at a golf club owned by the former president's family.
A former employee there received a $15,000 settlement in 2021. A later agreement exceeded $400,000. Habba has not commented on the termination.
