I’ve watched most of the Fulton County Georgia hearing on the motion to disqualify Fani Willis and Nathan Wade. Both the initial two days and again yesterday. A couple of weeks ago the first witness called was Nathan Wade’s former law partner and divorce attorney Terrence Bradley.  Things quickly went south over issues of attorney/client privilege and he was excused so it could be sorted out. Yesterday, after what’s called an in-camera interview with the judge a limited exception was carved out and so defense witness Bradley took the stand yesterday and as was the case the first time he looked like a man who wanted to be ANYWHERE but where he was. I could understand why, but how little did I know.

This morning I’ve read an article by CNN that provides a more complete picture of how Bradley came to be a defense (as in Trump’s defense team) witness. More importantly it, I believe shows just why Bradley was such a reluctant witness. Ashliegh Merchant, who is the lead attorney for the motion to disqualify is also the lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants and involved with the ex-wife of Nathan Wade’s divorce. It turns out her exchanges with Bradley are far more extensive than we thought:

The 413 texts between Terrence Bradley and Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for one of Trump’s co-defendants, reveal months of communications between the two, shedding new light on the extent to which Bradley assisted Merchant’s pursuit of evidence to back up claims Willis and her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, engaged in an improper romantic relationship.

Okay. I’d been under the assumption (I’ll bet most others were too) that the interactions between Bradley and Merchant were relatively few. Clearly that’s not the case. They communicated back and forth for months and not just by texts, as yesterday’s court session made clear. There were also at least some phone calls, and Merchant sending a draft copy of the motion to disqualify (Willis and Wade) to Bradley for review. As I wrote in an article here on Politizoom a couple of days ago a dispute arose over Bradley’s “approval” of the draft motion. Bradley testified that after reviewing it he sent a correction regarding financial information, which Merchant accepted. She then sent it back and Bradley said it looked good.

Yesterday, despite attacks Bradley insisted his “looks good” referred ONLY to the financial correction (something about roughly $70k in fees to the law firm) but NOT the overall substance of the motion. Naturally, Merchant and others on Team Trump feel Bradley had “endorsed” (my term) everything included in the motion to disqualify. That will be an issue the judge has to weigh before making a ruling. As the title indicates I think Bradley has a credibility problem but on this point he was quite forceful. People can and will disagree but it’s (to me at least) entirely plausible that Bradley’s “looks good” was as he stated under oath limited to a reference to that money. That, to characterize his testimony he wanted to ensure anything regarding fees/money was accurate.

Moving on to the heart of things I said a couple of days ago the entire couple of hours was a Trumpian sh*t show and I stand by that. Even more so given what’s in the linked CNN article. Given how chummy Bradley became with Merchant I can see why she wanted to call him to the stand to rebut Willis’ and Wade’s claim about when their romantic relationship started because in private at least Bradley painted a quite different picture. Yet for all that, it seems despite all the communication Bradley never gave a specific (as within a month or two) time when the “romantic relationship” began, or provide any personal knowledge of things he witnessed that would indicate “romance!”

I fear what’s gotten lost is that despite all those texts, Merchant couldn’t produce one (apparently) other than one from Bradley saying he thought things began when Willis was a Fulton County judge. Merchant is by all accounts a very good lawyer. I’m sure during any conversations she had with Bradley she took notes. Yet apparently she couldn’t produce even any notes (which do count as evidence in court most of the time) with which to confront Bradley. You know, a real live “Perry Mason moment” along the  lines of: Here are my notes of our conversation(s) on such and such a date where you specifically said “this.” Were you lying then or are you lying now?

I for one have no doubt that if Merchant had something explosive in her notes she’d have produced them to the court. I hope pundits will pick up on that like I did yesterday and talk about it. Still, this doesn’t get to what really is the likely reason for Bradley being such a reluctant witness which is this – he was promised his name would never come up! Yep, he was quite eager and even happy to say all manner of things when he thought he’d remain safely anonymous. Even make suggestions to help Merchant in her quest. It seems his trust in her keeping her word was sorely misplaced.  From the linked CNN article:

Over months of texts, Bradley on a number of occasions disparaged Wade and Willis, calling them “arrogant as f” in one January text to Merchant.

Bradley also indicated that he didn’t want to be directly connected to the allegations and expressed a desire not to be named as the initial source of the information.

“I protected you completely,” Merchant told Bradley about the draft of her motion to disqualify. “Not that you need protection,” Merchant texted. “But I kept you out of it.”

“I really appreciate you keeping me out of,” Bradley replied.

Well now, that certainly puts a different spin on things. But there’s more. The article notes the contrast between Bradley’s Tuesday testimony compared to the tone of his text messages (and one presumes other communications) with Merchant, including his calling Merchant his “friend” and also bashing Willis and Wade. Remember that Wade was his former law partner. The operative word that isn’t getting the attention it deserves is “former” as in why Bradley and Wade’s partnership dissolved:

Bradley left their law firm in 2022 after allegations surfaced that Bradley sexually assaulted an employee at the firm. Bradley denied those allegations while testifying at an earlier hearing over Willis’s potential disqualification.

That law firm wasn’t rolling in dough but was reasonably successful and testimony and documentation establishes that partners split all income equally. So getting forced out was a significant financial hit for Bradley and given the circumstances no doubt impacted his ability to easily or quickly replace a nice stream of income. Then, to add insult to injury Wade fired Bradley as his divorce attorney shortly after Bradley was forced out of the law firm.

Am I the only one who looks at all this and thinks maybe (ok, to me it seems obvious) that Bradley had an ax to grind? Keep in mind that Bradley had for a time been Wade’s divorce attorney so Merchant knew from the start there were things that would be protected by attorney-client privilege BUT in court attorneys can (and do) pose questions they know will be objected to knowing that just having accusations/innuendo out there register. Judges can (and do) admonish jurors (and internally themselves) NOT to take it into consideration but human beings are human beings. People can and do try to ignore this kind of thing but aren’t always successful.

What matters is that Merchant has managed to get all this out into the public realm and whatever promises she made to Bradley she strung him along knowing damn well that given any chance she’d do exactly what she’s done. Create a scandal in the hopes of tarnishing Willis’ and Wade’s professional reputations and more importantly create a cloud of doubt over the entire Trump RICO prosecution. She USED Bradley and intended to all along and he was too gullible to realize it. And that he’d wind up there where all the world could see he didn’t want to be.  Again I have to point out just how eager Bradley was to “get” Willis and particularly Wade:

Despite his desire to remain behind the scenes, Bradley provided Merchant with the names of several people he believed to have first-hand knowledge of when Willis and Wade’s romantic relationship began.

“Subpoena them all,” Bradley says in a text to Merchant on January 7, 2024, referring to a list of names that included other prosecutors in the DA’s office, members of Willis’ security detail and others close to her.

At one point Bradley and Merchant even discussed subpoenaing Willis’s children to confirm the existence of a romantic relationship between Willis and Wade.

For all that, the CNN article notes that Merchant was unable to secure any testimony/evidence to support her claim of the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade starting earlies than they say it did.  Which meant any promises she’d made to Bradley about confidentiality were worthless and that’s how he wound up being called. In retrospect, given he was supposed to be “leadoff” when the hearing convened a couple of weeks ago it now seems Merchant was counting on him. From the beginning despite what she’d told him when they were exchanging all those texts. He was supposed to be the gun that fired her “kill shot” and he turned out to be a blank load instead of a live bullet.

Here’s how the now much fuller picture looks to me. I’m of the opinion that when Merchant reached out Bradley was in “a mood”, and wanting some “payback” for his diminished financial and career status. So he shot off his mouth believing Merchant’s bullshit about keeping his name out of it. If he looked miserable, and suffering on the stand he’s only got himself to blame. He had to admit he had NOTHING to back up the claims he’d made to Merchant when he thought no one would ever know he’d been helping her “get” Willis and Wade. Did he make assumptions? Clearly so. Just like people make assumptions about others and what they believe “have” to be being romantically involved.

I’ve had it happen to me with women I’ve known and worked with. I’ll bet most of you have too. People can associate outside the office and even be friends but that does NOT a romantic relationship make. However that doesn’t prevent others who know one or both of them, especially if they have some reason to be upset with one or both of them or think they’d been denied their due at work from “speculating.” Even spreading rumors. Again, I’ll bet every person who’s reading this has witnesses this very phenomena.  People form opinions and even gossip about them. Or choose to spread malicious rumors for whatever reason.

Like the woman who was once friends with Willis who didn’t do her job at the DA’s office and was “fired” as in allowed to resign instead of being officially terminated. To me Bradley is no different. He was pissed about being forced out of a if not lucrative then reasonably successful law practice. And the resulting loss of income. Worse he then lost even the income of representing Wade as his divorce attorney. So when given the chance he chose to shoot off his mouth and get payback.

During some intense questioning as to why he would have said what he did to Merchant to me, even Tuesday his refusal to come up with an explanation was obvious. The truth of why he “speculated” was he didn’t want to say the actual truth which was basically: Look. Wade did me wrong dumping me like he did. He and Fani Willis knew each other because he gave her advice on her campaign. They were both “available” so I assumed, even though I never had any evidence of it to think they at least “got it on” sometimes. And because SHE (points to Merchant) promised to keep my name out of it I shot off my big fat mouth and talks a bunch of sh*t I knew I couldn’t back up.  That’s what I thought of Bradley back on Tuesday, and now after reading the CNN article I’m convinced I was right to think it.

From my perspective THAT seems to put a HUGE dent in Bradley’s credibility. He’s brought personal and professional humiliation on himself and perhaps even risked his law license in a fit of pique.  It will be interesting to see how the prosecution treats this during closing arguments tomorrow. The fact is, both of the defense (again – Trump’s lawyers) “star” witnesses have personal axes to grind harms their credibility.

That’s what all this boils down to. Who was more credible and able to back up their position while on the witness stand.  That’s what judge McAfee will have to weigh. I don’t approve (still) for one minute the way the judge let things go the way they did and for as long as they did Tuesday. Perhaps he was giving the defense rope with which to hang themselves. Because in the end, I suspect Bradley’s time on the stand went just how he thought it would.

Both in the sense that Bradley would show himself not to be a credible witness and the defense failing to produce evidence to meet the bar for disqualifying Willis, or even Wade for that matter. And probably not even any grounds for perjury charges which is something some pundits have bandied about.  The Georgia State Bar might have some issues they want to talk with Bradley about but that’s a different matter. However, the sad and infuriating fact is that the Georgia case has devolved into what I again say is the kind of monkeys flinging turds at the audience in the Big Top circus Trump wants, and even needs it to be.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. The judge in this case is not doing his job. Period, end of story. This is the usual delay until it goes away bullshit that follows trump much like the stench that follows him.

    There is one thing I have learned when it comes to attorneys working for trump and the southern judges holding his trials: they are not competent and they have been showing their incompetence on an almost daily basis. Our legal system is in the shitter and surely is a joke to the rest of the world. Our highest court in the land is perhaps the most corrupt on the planet.

    Can’t say this enough folks: GOTV. Until we rid ourselves of the ‘pubes, con xtians and the rest of that ilk, we will continue our national degradation until we end up just another third-world country. Never mistake this-the oligarchs want the u.s. to be so poverty-stricken, people will work merely for food. They’ll sell whatever it is they sell overseas and will become our overlords. We will become serfs, perhaps even slaves.

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    • Take back the language. MAGA/GQP-ers ARE NOT PATRIOTS. They are anarchists. Patriots do not storm the Capitol. Patriots do not support Trump.

      PATRIOTs vote for Democracy, not demagogic heresies.

      Patriots resist and repudiate fascism even if it carries Crosses and wraps up in the American Flag!

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  2. This ‘judge’ was a member of the Federalist society when in law school at UGA. Enough said. Anyone expect them to follow any type of truth will be sorely disappointed. Anyone who walks like a nazi, acts like a nazi, talks like a nazi…and is appointed to be a judge by a nazi…is a nazi. Any questions?
    “how many times musta man look up before he sees the sky?” Bob Dylan Blowing In The Wind

    • Damn. And thank you for raising this. I’m kicking myself for not doing enough research on McAfee. I heard positive comments about him from legal pundits on MSNBC when the arraignments started and didn’t do my own deep dive into him. Well, thanks to your comment I’ve done so and all I can say is I hope somehow soon Democrats will turn Sheldon Whitehouse loose to front a months long effort to make think of the way they thought of the Klan, at least pre-MAGA. (It’s morphed of course and re-emerged again like a virus)

      He’s young and no doubt ambitious so he’s likely to keep his LEGAL rulings within bounds and as I said the defense hasn’t provided any evidence that meets the standard for disqualification. I suggested a couple of days ago he allowed that sh*t show to go on how it did to try and pressure Willis into handing off the case as he had no legal justification to do so. And, as I wrote this morning after his in camera chat with Bradley knew the defense wouldn’t be getting anything in the way of actual evidence from him and figured things would go how we saw Tuesday.

      Now, knowing McAfee his a Federalist Society F*ckwad Fascist I’m even more convinced. The Federalist Society is, and was created to be a clear and present danger to the American experiment in representative Democracy. I’ve said before that when they and their accolytes talk of going back to the beginning they don’t mean the Constitution and the form of government (as Franklin said, “A Republic, if you can keep it” but to the Articles of Confederation where a handful of the very richest and most powerful people got to make all the rules and change them whenver it suited their interests to do so. Hell, with our fledgling nation on the brink of falling apart some of them were quietly talking with England on how to help sell the country out and get a big fat reward for doing so.

      The very name of that organization galls me because they are the OPPOSITE of the actual Federalists who pushed for the Constitutional Convention and advocated for a strong central government! However as you know conservatives have a long, long history of creating influential organizations/advocacy groups with names that completely mislead the public about what they really are and their intentions.

      Given what they’ve wrought up to and including the Jan. 6 insurrection riot their members should ALL be charged with sedition. Because that’s what they are. Fucking seditionists bent on destroying our institutions and Constitutional norms.

      • “…conservatives have a long, long history of creating influential organizations/advocacy groups with names that completely mislead the public about what they really are and their intentions.”

        Their naming is more like 1984 doublespeak. Every single one of them.

  3. Oh my this is one of the best summations on what we we’ve seen that I have read yet so far. To add my 5¢ to the subject (inflation, you know) here goes:

    What I am getting so tired of is people that keep saying “Oh Fani Willis should be disqualified because her ‘credibility’ is at issue.”

    Her credibility about what?

    That she somehow denied that she even had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade?

    She and he admitted that UNDER OATH in front of a Defense Attorney who is well versed in Georgia law codes set up by the Georgia Supreme Court and already KNOWS that there is no prohibition for such a relationship.

    That she did or did not keep money in her house for which to reimburse Nathan Wade for any money he may have spent on her??

    Almost every black woman and THEIR DADDIES in Georgia can testify as to how true this may be. Just go ask any 6, 6,000 or 60,000 of them and they’ll tell you so.

    That she didn’t actually pay Nathan Wade in cash?

    The wine merchant in Napa Valley, CA can at least partly verify how true it may be (recently said he was willing to testify in court, if need be). It was he that got the cash. And I’m sure that if anyone looked hard enough, they could probably find a few others willing to testify to it also.

    That she lied about Nathan Wade living with her at some point before 2021?

    Her Dad and some dude named Deuce can put paid to that assertion.

    I am really glad that Mr. Vino & DJ Deuce (my copyright) did not have to be dragged in front of the court cameras over this sordid mess.

    That she lied about starting an intimate relationship with Wade prior to 2021?

    You only have the testimony of

    1 currently ex-employee from whom Fani rented her condo (who, by the way, never once questioned the amount of any monies requested from this woman however specious) who physically ceased living there soon after the rental and that THE DEFENSE LAWYERS have NEVER established as paying any regular visits to said address to actually SEE any multiple incidences of Fani & Wade “kissing and hugging”

    AND

    A 2nd ex-employee who, after being sworn under penalty of perjury and bearing up under 2 days of relentless questioning, testified that he ‘can’ not & ‘will’ not say that he has any specific knowledge when their relationship began. And if you really wanted to stretch a point and say ‘Well, he was getting paid to NOT tell what he knows’.
    Then he and that SOMEBODY what may have paid him are the real ones open to a conflict of interest charge. Ashleigh if you really think that, I think you would have a dandy case to bring before the ethics board.

    And to this date, the Defense has NOT sworn in anyone else that purports to have a verifiable ability to see through walls and also has a photographic memory sit down and present that evidence in a court room. If they have such a person, then why didn’t they drag this individual’s ass into court or present that deposition as evidence??

    Yes this all looks bad. But this all looks bad for The Trump Team. The burden of proof has always been on them. The credibility issue that all these lay idiots keep insisting is, somehow, “a thing” only becomes true if you apply it to the Defense side.

    When did judging the “credibility” of a District Attorney’s LOVE LIFE become “a thing” ???

    If Fani Willis’ supposed credibility issues were really as open-and-shut as they feverishly keep trying to make it out to be, then they should have been able to prove it 17 days ago.

    I also want to comment on a specific that you said about Mr. B’s credibility…or rather his gullibility: what kind of a two-toed idiot would he have to be to have EVER believed that a WHITE Southern Lady Lawyer would keep her word to BLACK man from ANYWHERE? I’ll keep your name out of it?! In a pig’s eye!!

    As I indicated earlier, no matter what happens in the Trump case, there seems to be lots of foundation for a bunch of personal civil lawsuits later.

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