2 months ago
In a tense hearing in Atlanta Tuesday, a key witness refused to confirm details about the romantic relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and the special prosecutor she hired to lead her criminal case against Donald Trump.
Terrence Bradley, a lawyer who formerly represented special prosecutor Nathan Wade in his divorce, reluctantly answered questions under oath for two hours but repeatedly said he did not know specifics about Willis’ relationship with Wade, including if they were dating when she hired him as an outside attorney under contract with Fulton County.
Trump and his co-defendants are seeking to have Willis — and her entire office — thrown off the case. They say Willis improperly benefited from the case because after she hired Wade to run the prosecution, Wade allegedly used income from his work on the case to pay for vacations with Willis.
Willis and Wade have acknowledged a romantic relationship but have insisted under oath that it began only after Willis hired Wade in November 2021. They have denied any wrongdoing.
Lawyers for Trump and his co-defendants had signaled that Bradley would testify that Willis and Wade became romantically involved before Willis hired him. If Bradley had testified to that, it would have strengthened the bid to disqualify the prosecutors and would have opened Willis and Wade up to accusations that they lied to the judge.
Bradley, however, said he could not recall when he learned of the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade, and he claimed to have had only a single conversation about the relationship with Wade.
In the hearing, Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants, read text messages Bradley sent her saying the prosecutors’ relationship began before Wade joined Willis’ team. But Bradley — who was forced to take the stand due to a subpoena and acknowledged that he didn’t want to be testifying — wouldn’t stand by his text messages. Instead, he insisted that he was merely speculating in those texts. And he said he had no memory of ever knowing when exactly they struck up a romance.
The Trump-allied lawyers — particularly Steve Sadow, who represents the former president — laid into Bradley. But he didn’t budge.
“You want the court to believe that instead of saying nothing, you decided on your own to speculate?” Sadow asked.
“Yes, I speculated,” Bradley replied.
And Richard Rice, who represents another co-defendant, pressed Bradley on whether he lied about Wade when he communicated with Merchant. Rice noted that Bradley had described Wade as a friend.
“As a normal course of relationships with your friends, do you pass on lies about your friends?” Rice asked. “Is that something you normally do, Mr. Bradley? Do you tell lies about your friends?”
“Have I told lies about my friends?” Bradley replied. “I could have, I don’t know.”
Tuesday’s testimony from Bradley was a continuation of a dramatic evidentiary hearing that began earlier this month and featured testimony by both Willis and Wade themselves. Judge Scott McAfee has asked the lawyers to present legal arguments on the disqualification effort this Friday, with a ruling expected after that.
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