A lawyer who quit Donald Trump�s legal team this past week attributed his decision Saturday to strategy disagreements with a close adviser to the former president.

Timothy Parlatore, who had been a key lawyer for Trump in a Justice Department special counsel investigation into the potential mishandling of classified documents at his Florida estate, told CNN in an interview on Saturday that there were �certain individuals that made defending the president much harder than it needed to be.�

He singled out Boris Epshteyn, another lawyer and top Trump adviser in multiple criminal investigations, whom he accused of �doing everything he could to try to block us to prevent us from doing what we could to defend the president.�

Parlatore disclosed Wednesday that he was resigning from the Trump legal team, a move that comes as the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith shows signs of winding down and nearing a decision on whether or not to bring charges against the former president. His comments Saturday provided additional context for the decision.

In a statement responding to Parlatore�s comments, a Trump spokesman said �Mr. Parlatore is no longer a member of the legal team. His statements regarding current members of the legal team are unfounded and categorically false.�

In his interview, Parlatore said Epshteyn had served as a �filter� in preventing the legal team from getting information about the investigation to or from Trump.

He also said Epshteyn had resisted the idea of the legal team organizing months ago a search of Trump�s property in Bedminster, New Jersey, for potential additional classified documents, and that he had impeded a defense strategy aimed at helping �educate (Attorney General) Merrick Garland as to how best to handle this matter.� Parlatore was one of the authors of a letter last month to the chairman of the House intelligence committee laying out a series of potential defenses in the investigation.

�It�s difficult enough fighting against DOJ, and in this case a special counsel, but when you also have people within the tent that are also trying to undermine you, block you and really make it so that I can�t do what I know that I need to do as a lawyer,� Parlatore said.

�And when I am getting into fights like that, that�s detracting from what is necessary to defend the client and ultimately was not in the client�s best interest, so I made the decision to withdraw,� he added.

(AP)