Onboard with both of you here. Both of you have far more relevant experience than I do on this. And lord knows I haven’t let that keep me from speculating like a coked-up currency trader about this.
The motion to withdraw is an enigma. A pro se response by the client saying “please don’t rule yet” when everyone knows he’s got the heaviest of heavy hitter firms in his corner is perplexing. I have never heard of anything like that before, at least not where there’s a sane, solvent client with access to other lawyers involved.
Best fit I can make is that his own lawyers think they are in a “mandatory withdrawal” situation, his new lawyers are not in that situation but do not want to become of record and the client thinks he’s going to be in a deal with Mueller soon and will be willing to cut them off then, but doesn’t want his current lawyers to be officially out until then, just in case it falls through. Not wanting him to make a deal wouldn’t be the kind of “irreconcilable differences” that would lead most lawyers to want to withdraw if there’s a deal in the offing. The only thing I can think of that fits is that they made a material misrepresentation in a pleading or argument based upon information provided by the client that he later told them in confidence was false and he won’t let them correct the record.