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Terrence Bradley, Special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s former law partner and one-time divorce attorney, testifies in court on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, Pool) Inset bottom right: Nathan Wade appears during a Fulton County court hearing on Feb. 15, 2024. (Law&Crime Network); Inset top right: Fani Willis appears during a Fulton County court hearing on Feb. 15, 2024. (Law&Crime Network)
An unforced tactical error by a special prosecutor working for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office led to a bit of a wash in court on Tuesday afternoon during a pretrial hearing in the racketeering (RICO) case against Donald Trump and others.
“I don’t recall,” was the phrase du jour during testimony from divorce attorney Terrence Bradley as he answered question after question about a litany of issues regarding the romantic relationship between District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
The witness, under scrutiny for why he previously said the pair “absolutely” began dating before Willis hired Wade, was often evasive under oath. He frequently had to have his memory refreshed about past statements. And, at least once, he changed his answer to a question after being shown an exhibit that disproved his earlier testimony.
Asked point blank about whether he lied when he previously made claims about the timeline of the relationship, roughly 10 seconds passed before Bradley tentatively answered: “Did I lie?”
“That’s a simple question, Mr. Bradley, you’re a lawyer,” defense attorney Richard Rice, who represents Robert Cheeley, retorted.
Throughout the day, however, the answers seemed far from simple.
How we got here
In early January, a petit upheaval in the case brought by Willis against the 45th president began to unfold and quickly snowballed.
In a searing and still-to-be-decided motion, co-defendant Michael Roman — a former Trump 2020 staffer accused of a role in the fake electors plot — publicized the district attorney’s romantic relationship with her hand-picked lead. Roman’s goal, by now well-known, is to have Willis, along with her entire office and her lieutenants, thrown off the case. Many other defendants happily joined those motions on the burgeoning docket.
The ongoing disruption has only gathered strength since.
On Feb. 12, after weeks of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation — and several bouts of dueling motions from various co-defendants and the state attempting to influence his opinion — Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee gave the defense a decided victory.
The allegations of nepotism and self-dealing against Willis and Wade were serious enough to warrant sworn testimony in a special hearing. And, if proven, the claims “could result in disqualification,” he ruled.
Throughout a two-day hearing, the upshot was largely mixed.
Wade, bristling under subpoena, testified their relationship did not become romantic until sometime in 2022. Willis, who previously battled her subpoena, dramatically sauntered into the courtroom and performed a volte-face, insisting she wanted to testify. The angry district attorney mostly echoed the special prosecutor on key points, agreeing they did not become romantic with one another until 2022.
Earlier on day one, the defense drew blood when Robin Yeartie, a former employee of the district attorney’s office — who said she was long “best friends” with Willis after the pair met in college — testified the two lawyers began their romantic relationship sometime in late 2019.
The second day of the hearing formed the basis for today’s testimony.
Wade’s former divorce attorney, Terrence Bradley, clearly did not want to answer questions. He often glared at Roman’s defense attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, for bringing him into the whole mess.
Though the earlier hearing established that Bradley, at the very least, told Merchant things that led her to genuinely believe Wade began the romantic relationship with Willis well before she hired him to work at the Fulton County DA’s office, the witness seemingly dodged bullets.
Bradley was repeatedly barred from testifying about the Wade-Willis affair when the state and his attorney invoked the attorney-client privilege — extremely limiting and diluting the impact of his comments to Merchant referencing the disputed relationship timeline.
But late in the day, as a surprise to almost everyone in the courtroom, the state accused Bradley of sexual assault. This shocking turn of events ended up undercutting substantial portions of his prior testimony. In turn, the now-wide gulf led the judge to question whether Bradley or the other parties claiming privilege had properly understood how to apply the privilege from the get-go.
On Monday, after an in camera hearing with Bradley and Bradley’s attorney, the court found the privilege had not, in fact, been properly applied to at least some portions of Bradley’s testimony.
“[T]he interested parties did not meet their burden of establishing that the communication(s) are covered by attorney-client privilege and therefore the hearing can resume as to Mr. Bradley’s examination,” McAfee ruled.
A second bite at the apple
Throughout Tuesday’s proceedings, Bradley told Merchant he did not have any first-hand knowledge about the relationship between Willis and Wade. Asked when he first learned about the relationship, the witness repeatedly said he could not recall – drawing multiple objections from the state and the occasional but gentle, reminder from the judge to move things along.
When asked the foundational question as to how he knew about the relationship, finally, Bradley was somewhat more forthcoming.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” the witness said. “I can’t give you a date if you’re asking for a date. If you’re asking how did I get the knowledge, it would have come directly from a client.”
That client, as it turned out, was Wade.
Over the course of his testimony, Bradley said he believed there was only one specific conversation he had with Wade about the relationship with Willis – over roughly four years. That recollection elicited incredulity from defense counsel, who heavily suggested Bradley was not being truthful under oath.
Eventually, when asked to account for why he also told Merchant the relationship began when Willis herself was a magistrate court judge, Bradley said: “No one told me, I was speculating.”
The role of speculation became a salient point when Trump’s Atlanta-based attorney, Steve Sadow, had his turn at the witness.
Sadow introduced text message interactions between Merchant and Bradley in which the witness said the relationship “absolutely” began after Willis hired Wade. In another interaction, Bradley said the relationship began when the pair served as municipal court judges. Willis served as a municipal court judge from 2019 through 2020.
The defense attorney asked why he told Merchant those things.
“I was speculating,” Bradley said.
Sadow replied: “Maybe you can tell the court in your own words, why in the heck would you speculate in this text message and say that it started when she left the DA’s office and was a judge in South Fulton.”
“I don’t recall why I felt that it started at that time,” Bradley said.
Sadow’s final question got to the heart of the matter as the defense came to see the testimony, ultimately lackluster, unfold on Tuesday.
“Mr. Bradley, you realize that if you were to testify under oath that you knew from Mr. Wade that the relationship between him and Ms. Willis existed before the contract in November 1 of 2021, that if you testified that you knew that from Mr. Wade, that would show that both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade had lied under oath,” Trump’s attorney – a respected cross-examiner – asked. “You know, that don’t you?”
McAfee interjected before Bradley could respond, saying the answer would “call for an opinion on the credibility of another testifying witness” and, therefore, would not be an appropriate question.
Sadow also worked to elicit testimony from the witness that he knew Merchant was preparing a filing to disqualify Wade from the case based, at least in part, on the timeline Bradley had supplied.
“If you’re being asked, as we’ve just gone through with this text message, from Ms. Merchant, as the attorney for a co-defendant, and she’s asking you about the relationship and she’s clearly asking you about the timing, why wouldn’t you just have said, in response: ‘I don’t know when it started’?” Sadow asked, drilling in.
Bradley haltingly replied: “I don’t know why I didn’t say ‘I don’t know.””
Later, Rice dredged up the constant references to speculation made by the witness.
“Mr. Bradley, ‘speculation’ is kind of a weaselly lawyer word,” the defense attorney said. “Let’s speak truth here and you’re under oath.”
The implication had been clear for quite some time: the frustrated series of defense attorneys treated the witness as adverse and believed he was being less than forthcoming on the stand.
Then the subtext became explicit.
“Do you tell lies about your friends in a case of national importance?” Rice asked.
“I could have, I don’t know,” Bradley replied.
After a quick back-and-forth about where the witness was looking, McAfee gravely urged the defense attorney to ask another question.
“No further questions, judge,” Rice said: “I think it’s clear.”
